


When the Lie Becomes the Truth

by Happilyreading



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amnesia, F/M, Light BDSM, May/December Relationship, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 12:07:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10020131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happilyreading/pseuds/Happilyreading
Summary: John and Clara make for an unlikely but happy couple living together in London with their two year old daughter Rose. When Clara wakes up in a hotel room minus her memory and her wedding rings, John wonders how happy she really was. While Clara tries to adjust to a life with a husband and a child she can't remember, John searches for an answer to the question of who his wife really is, how much of their relationship was real, and what they can build from the ashes of a life Clara can't remember.





	1. Chapter 1

The morning had started much like any other for John. He’d gotten up just before six when two-year-old Rose appeared by his and Clara’s bed announcing it was time for breakfast.

“Shhhh,” he’d told his daughter. “Let’s let Mummy sleep.” 

Rose nodded seriously. She was a little clone of her mother with the same heart shaped face, button nose and dark hair. His only contribution to her genetics appeared to be her blue-grey eyes. John didn’t mind at all. His wife was by far the better looking half - not to mention 25 years younger than him - and he was delighted their daughter took after her mother. 

Downstairs he cooked with Rose’s ‘assistance’, which mostly involved her ordering him about. John wasn’t sure if that was a learned behavior from her mother or simply in the genes. He didn’t mind either way. He adored his daughter and her tiny mother and some days he couldn’t believe his good fortune that Clara had married him and borne his child. 

“Good morning family,” his wife said from the kitchen door a few minutes later. 

“Mummy!” Rose shouted in delight. “I made eggs and avocado and toast!” 

“Wow!” Clara said, brown eyes twinkling as she surveyed the toast and eggs. “All by yourself?”

Rose smiled. “Daddy helped.” 

“Good morning,” John said, moving to kiss his wife. He knew at five foot two his wife was essentially a foot shorter than him, but he was always slightly surprised at her tininess when they hugged, or when he’d been away from her for a day. For some reason he always imagined Clara to be taller than she was. 

They ate breakfast as a family, listening to Rose tell them wild stories about the adventures she went on the night before in her ‘dream box’. They both indulged her. They’d gone back and forth on the idea of a second child, especially since Rose was going to be three in a month, but ultimately they’d decided to stick with one. John was semi-retired and his work as a journalist was flexible enough for him to spend most of his time looking after Rose while Clara was teaching at the high school full time. He wasn’t sure they could make their schedule work with another child. He thought Clara probably wanted another child more than she let on, and if he’d been even ten years younger he would’ve been happy to meet her request. But as it was… 

He smiled at his wife as she helped Rose wash her hands over the sink. He’d never be sorry he gave into Clara’s demands for a relationship in the face of all of his logical arguments otherwise, but Clara was 30 to his 55 and they both had to make compromises to make their relationship work.

As per usual John and Rose waved goodbye to Clara at the front door. He’d planted some pink roses in the small garden on the weekend and he and Rose paused to look at them, waving at Clara as she disappeared up the road. 

John took Rose to story time at the local library just before 11. The house his family lived in now had been his alone for 25 years before Clara moved in five years ago. He was old enough to watch Notting Hill become a trendy suburb, and still he remembered how it was thirty years ago. Mostly he liked the changes, but every now and then he wondered if he was ready to leave London. Clara wasn’t, so he supposed he wasn’t. Rose was happy wherever they were, so that was something. 

That afternoon he and Rose ate lunch on a large blanket in their small back yard and later when she took her nap, he worked on an article that was giving him trouble. He’d spent 35 years reporting on politics and he wasn’t sure he understood much more now than he had as a young man of 20 in his first journalism cadetship. 

It wasn’t until just after six o’clock that John started to worry. Sometimes Clara went out for a drink with her work friends after work, and usually she let him know. She hadn’t sent a text all day. He tried to call her and received a message stating her phone was switched off. To get Rose to bed he lied and said Mummy was working tonight and would come and kiss her goodnight when she was asleep. He read a very fast story, kissed his daughter goodnight, closed her bedroom door and reached for his phone. 

He called one of Clara’s colleagues who said she’d seen Clara at school, but didn’t know if there had been drinks this evening. John tried to play down his concern to, but inside he was close to panicking. His wife did not disappear like this. She did not miss bedtime kisses with her daughter and she did not go missing for hours without a text. Something must have happened to her. She was either hurt, or she was being held against her will and those possibilities made John feel like he was going to fly apart. 

He called the police, but they said it was too soon to file a missing persons report. So he started calling the hospitals then, asking if a Clara Oswald had been admitted. She never changed her name after the wedding and he didn’t care. It caused confusion sometimes as Rose was Rose Smith, but it was no big deal. There were no Clara Oswalds admitted at any of the hospitals, so he started calling again and asking for Jane Does. Close to midnight he thought he might have something, a Jane Doe had been admitted with a head injury around six o’clock. If it was Clara, that would explain why she hadn’t been checked in under her name.

John phoned Clara’s friend Ash. Thankfully she picked up straight away. 

“Clara is missing, and I think she might have been admitted to hospital. I really need you to come and sit with Rose while I go there and check.” 

“Of course,” Ash said, sounding surprised, concerned and upset all at once. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

John paced his lounge room for the entire ten minutes, his eyes frequently going to the photographs of his and Clara’s wedding on the mantelpiece. It had been a beautiful day, and the sky behind them was bright blue. His eyes were on Clara and hers were looking straight into the lens. God she was beautiful. He couldn’t even let himself imagine what life would be like for him and Rose without her. 

He opened the front door almost as soon as Ash knocked on it. She came in, her short dark hair a mess around her square face. 

“No news?” the young woman asked, brows furrowed.

“None. I need to go.” 

“Go, go,” she flapped her hands towards the door. 

It took John twenty minutes to get to the hospital. And another ten frustrating minutes to answer questions about what his wife looked like, what she’d been wearing that morning - he didn’t know and couldn’t remember - and to describe her jewelry. 

“Her engagement ring is a sapphire. A bright blue square stone set in white gold. Her wedding ring is white gold.” 

The nurse frowned. “This Jane Doe isn’t wearing any rings.” 

John struggled to maintain his temper. Becoming a father had made him a better person on a number of levels, but that patience he’d learned from parenting Rose was disappearing fast. “She’s tiny, five foot two. She has dark glossy hair, a turned up nose and dark eyes. We’ve been married for five years. We have a daughter. For God’s sake let me see her! If it isn’t her I’ll leave.”

The nurse obviously decided she didn’t like him shouting at her and curtly escorted her to the room. John almost pushed the annoying woman out of the way to see if it was Clara in the bed. When she finally moved out of the way and John laid eyes on his wife for the first time since he and Rose had waved goodbye to her this morning. 

“Clara!” he said, relief flooding every cell in his body. “I’ve been so worried, darling. What happened?”

His wife’s brown eyes almost seemed to inflate as she stared at him. “I--I’m not--I--” she stammered.

John took her hand, and it was cold. “What is it, love?”

She pulled her hand from his. “I don't know who you are.”

He spared the gaping nurse a glance. “Get the doctor, will you?”

The woman looked like she wanted to argue, but John had already turned back to Clara. 

“I’m your husband.” He didn’t want to say anything about Rose. Memories were delicate things and he didn’t want to upset her.

Clara gave a strange little laugh. “You are? I mean, are you sure? You’re…and I’m…” she trailed off, giving him an embarrassed look. 

“You’re beauty and I’m the beast, I know.”

Her eyes met his and she almost smiled. 

“I’m sorry to be a disappointment.” His words came out sharper than he intended and Clara’s face fell. 

“Sorry, I--”

“Mr Smith?”

John turned towards the door where a man in a white coat stood. “Doctor Smith,” he corrected absently. “I’m Clara’s husband, even if she can’t remember.”

His wife squirmed a bit in the bed, avoiding eye contact with him. 

“What’s happened to her?” he asked, directing his attention back to the doctor. 

“Perhaps this is better discussed outside,” the other man said. “We’ll be right back, Jane.”

“Clara,” he snapped. “Her name is Clara Oswald.”

“No,” Clara said from the bed. “I’d know if that was my name, and it isn’t.”

“What's your name, then?” the doctor asked. 

Clara pursed her lips together and gave them both a steely look. “Bonnie.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading chapter one, and thank you especially to those who left comments. I appreciate it very much. :)

When Bonnie woke up, she knew two things. One, the man hovering over her bed and calling himself her husband was at best vaguely familiar to her, and two, her name wasn’t Clara.

“We’ll be right back, Bonnie,” the doctor said, his tone both soothing and condescending.

The two men left the room and Bonnie waited about two seconds before getting to her feet. She felt a head rush and black spots clouded her vision. She sat, impatiently waiting for them to clear before standing again, slower this time. She carefully walked across the room to hover behind the door. 

“--so it’s best at this point to humour her,” the doctor said. “Call her Bonnie, call her whatever she wants. The memory is a very delicate thing, Doctor Smith, and what Clara needs now is time and rest at home. We’ve arranged for the discharge papers.”

“What if she asks me questions?” Bonnie’s supposed husband asked. “What do I tell her? What do I tell our daughter?”

Bonnie’s heart thudded in her chest. Daughter? She had a daughter? No. Not possible. Maybe they’d adopted, or this husband of hers had a child with someone else when they got together. Bonnie hadn’t carried a baby. There’s no way she could in her line of work. 

“As little as possible. Take down any photographs and don’t tell her any stories for at least a week or so. Let the memories return naturally, if at all. Can someone else care for your daughter for a week or so?”

“Yes, my sister will take her. It will be hard though. Rose is only two.” 

Bonnie’s heart seized again. Two? She pulled up the hospital gown to look at her stomach, where she could see the tell tale faint stretch marks of a pregnancy not long gone. She pushed open the door to her left, praying it was the bathroom. She vomited until he stomach was empty. A child. She had a child. But this was a job. It had to be a job, and no one in Bonnie’s line of work had children. There were just some things you didn’t do, and having a child with a cover was one of those things. 

“Clara, are you okay?” John’s voice came from outside the bathroom.

“Fine,” Bonnie replied automatically. “Just nausea.” 

“It’s to be expected,” the doctor said. “After an incident like this--” 

Bonnie turned on the tap, drowning his further commentary out. In the mirror above the sink she had the same straight dark shoulder length hair and the same wide brown eyes. Her boyfriend called her Bambi because of her eyes. Danny. Where was Danny? He understood the job, but surely he hadn’t just sat by the sidelines as she had married and had a kid. She wouldn’t have if their situations were reversed, so probably he was long gone. 

Bonnie leaned close to the mirror and noticed some fine lines she didn’t remember around her eyes. If her daughter - John had called her Rose - was two, and assuming she and John had been together for a few years before her birth, she was missing at least four years of memories, maybe five. Fuck. 

What to do? For now, her training told Bonnie to play along. Be ‘Clara’, be John’s wife. Don’t think about the kid. Lay low. Try to find clues at home about her cover. Wait for the memories to come back. She took a deep breath. 

“I can do this,” she whispered fiercely to her reflection. “I am trained for this.” She nodded at her reflection. “Clara. I’m Clara.” 

When Bonnie opened the bathroom door she found John waiting next to her bed. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, his concern obvious. “I mean, comparatively…obviously you still can’t remember me.”

Bonnie almost smiled at his awkwardness. “Yes. This is all a bit overwhelming.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay, my Clara.” 

She froze a little.

“Sorry, I just… Bonnie. I’ll do better.”

Bonnie tried to smile. She must have some kind of feelings for the man if she was living with him and raising a child.

“No, my name is Clara. I know that. I don’t know why I said Bonnie.” She faked a trembling lip and managed a few tears. She’d always excelled at acting during her training. It was part of the reason why she was so good at the job. “I’m very confused. I’m sorry.” 

Wordlessly John embraced her, and Bonnie was surprised to feel her body instantly soften into his in what she assumed was muscle memory. He was so much taller than her, and he cradled her so gently and carefully that her fake tears suddenly felt surprisingly real. 

He pulled back rather suddenly. “I’m sorry. You may not want me to hug you.”

“It’s fine,” Bonnie said. She and this man were incredibly awkward around one another. She was wondering how Clara and John had managed to get married and have a kid. “How did we meet?” 

“Um, the doctor said I shouldn’t tell you too many stories.”

“I don’t care what he said.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do.” John’s mouth lifted in a half smile Bonnie found oddly attractive. He wasn’t an unattractive man, she thought objectively. A lot older than her, but he was tall and while thin, he had a strength to him that was obvious when her body was against his. His hair was a mess of unruly curls, but a woman could sink her hands into it and tug on it during sex. 

John lifted an eyebrow, as if he recognised the look on her face as something sexual. Maybe he did. They were married. They had a kid. They obviously had sex.

Bonnie turned away to her pile of clothes and pulled the hospital gown over her head. She was casual about nudity in general and she figured there was no point being coy around a man she obviously had sex with. 

She pulled her knickers on and turned back to John. “Well?” 

His eyes were on her bare breasts, and he flicked them up to meet hers. “Well what?”

“Where did we meet?” Bonnie repeated. 

“Er--we met at the university.”

“Was I your student?” She reached for her clothes again. Admittedly she could’ve put her top on next but for reasons she didn’t care to examine she picked up the jeans. 

“Good God no,” John said, sounding a bit horrified. “You were a student, though. Just not mine.” 

“Sounds like a fantasy,” Bonnie said as she pulled up the fly of her jeans. 

“Are you planning on putting your shirt on anytime soon?” John asked, sounding a bit put out. 

Bonnie put her hands on her hips. “I thought we were married. You’ve never seen me topless before?” 

“I have,” John said, averting his eyes. “Just not for a while and not so…casually.”

That jolted Bonnie a bit. This man’s wife - Clara - was not the same person as Bonnie. She was a character, a cover for a job. And for some reason Bonnie didn’t care about that right now. 

She closed the distance between her and Clara’s husband with a few steps. “You don’t like looking at me naked?” she taunted. “You don’t like what you see?”

John’s eyes connected with hers, and the heat in them took Bonnie by surprise. “Do not play with me, Clara. That’s not how this works.” 

“How does it work, then?” 

His mouth was on hers very quickly, and the kiss was forceful and hard. Bonnie opened her mouth and John took full advantage of this, his tongue finding hers. Was it always like this with this man? Bonnie wondered as one of his hands stroked her back and the other found a home in her hair. He certainly seemed to think she belonged to him. He pulled her hair gently, separating their mouths. 

“Finish getting dressed please.” He stepped back from her, already composed.

Bonnie was still panting a little and felt nowhere near as composed as John looked. She turned back to her clothes, clipping her bra and pulling the t-shirt over her head. 

“I’m sorry,” he said when she turned back to him. “I let you provoke me into that. You’re unwell, and the last thing you need right now is that.”

Bonnie wanted to protest and say some good, rough sex was exactly what she needed right now, but something told her Clara wouldn’t have given that response. John’s reactions seemed to indicate Clara was more demure than Bonnie. 

“I’m sorry too,” she said, looking at John through lowered eyelashes. “I don’t know why I acted that way. I’m very confused.” She sniffed, just to seal the deal.

John gently squeezed her arm. “Oh my Clara. Let’s get you home, hmm?”

Bonnie nodded, her mind already spinning on how she was going to manage to be Clara in Clara’s life with Clara’s family with absolutely no memories and no knowledge of her cover.


	3. Chapter 3

John opened the front door of their house, holding it for Clara as she walked in. He had been hoping their house might provoke some sort of reaction in her, but her wide eyes reflected nothing other than slight surprise. 

“Where’s Rose?” she asked, looking around as if she expected their 2-year-old to appear suddenly.

“She’s with a friend.” He dropped his keys in the fish bowl next to the front door. Clara had found at a second hand shop when they were dating. She proclaimed it perfect for the table next to his front door, and there it had remained ever since. “Can I get you anything? Tea, perhaps?”

“Do I smoke?” 

“No.” Well, not that he was aware of. But apparently there was a few things he didn’t know about his wife. Like what she was doing in a hotel room without her wedding rings. 

“I feel like I do,” she stated. 

“I might have one somewhere.” He didn’t smoke - Clara had broken him of that habit - but every now and then the urge for the ritual overtook him and he snuck one. 

“Thanks.”

He took this as his cue to go upstairs and rummage through his study drawer for the pack of not too stale cigarettes. When he came back downstairs Clara was standing next to their fireplace mantle, staring intently at the photographs. 

“The doctor said you shouldn’t look at those just yet.” He joined her in front of the mantle. “He said it was better to let your memory return gently.”

“I don’t care what he said,” she replied almost absently, her eyes on their wedding photo. 

John looked at the photo. She was looking directing at the camera and he was looking at her. How pretty she looked, and how besotted he looked. 

“Was it a big wedding?” she asked.

“No. Just us and a few friends.” He touched the glass of the photo, making a finger mark in the dust.

Clara turned to face him. “Was I pregnant? Is that why you married me?” 

John gazed at his tiny wife. The mother of his child. The person he slept next to less than 48 hours ago. The person who was now treating him like a stranger. 

“No, and no. I married you because I loved you. I do love you.”

Clara couldn’t hold eye contact with him and picked up the wedding photo. “Whose idea was it to get married?” 

“Yours,” John said immediately. He hadn’t even considered that Clara might want to marry him. He had been surprised she even wanted to be his girlfriend so he hadn’t even considered she might want to marry. 

“It all sounds pretty shot gun-y.” 

John blinked, trying to interpret her statement. “Well, you didn’t get pregnant with Rose until we’d been married for almost a year.” 

She turned cold brown eyes on him. “And whose idea was that?” 

“I don’t like your tone,” he told her. 

She touched his arm, and he was alarmed at the speed with which her brown eyes warmed up to a much more familiar expression. “Sorry.” She lowered her eyelashes. “This is all a bit overwhelming.”

“Which is probably why the doctor told you not to look at photographs.”

She tilted her head in an unfamiliar way. “Have I ever been very good at doing as I’m told?”

“You need reminding at times,” he admitted. Clara enjoyed a spanking from time to time, and he had to admit he enjoyed giving it to her. 

She squeezed his arm and he passed her the cigarettes. 

“Come with me?” she asked, nodding towards the front door.

He followed her outside to their front porch. She took a cigarette and offered him one. He automatically refused before reconsidering. If there was ever a time he needed a cigarette, his wife losing her memory and acting like someone else was that time. They both smoked in silence and John was aware of the practiced movements his wife made while smoking. She had smoked at some point, even if it was before he knew her. 

“You don’t remember me at all, or Rose, obviously. Does that mean the last thing you remember is five years ago?” 

Clara took a long drag. “I definitely don’t remember you or the kid. I was surprised to see more wrinkles on my face, so I guess it’s five years ago for me.” She gave him a slight smile. “My own personal time vortex. Sucked back five years.”

“What were you doing five years ago?” he asked. 

“Going to uni. Living with a friend in a typical uni flat. I had a boyfriend and a part time job making coffee.”

“You never make me coffee,” he commented. 

She grinned at him suddenly, making his heart constrict a little. “Maybe I grew tired of making coffee for people back then.”

He smiled back. “Maybe.”

She was quiet then, flicking his lighter on and off in a repetitive smooth motion that was almost hypnotic. 

“You didn’t answer my question before,” she said. “Whose idea was it to have Rose?” 

“She wasn’t planned,” he admitted. “Birth control failure. We were pretty shocked and considered…options. But we decided to go ahead and neither or us have ever been sorry.” He smiled, thinking of his daughter and her sweet personality. 

“I have a hard time imagining myself as a mother,” Clara said. 

“You’re a very good one,” he said. “Rose adores you.”

“But you look after her?”

“Yes, I work from home and I do most of the child care while you’re at work.”

Clara lit another cigarette and John looked down to see his cigarette was almost all ash. He stubbed it out. 

“Where do I work?” 

“At a school,” he said. “You teach.”

Clara gave him a disbelieving look. “I hate children. I hate the idea of teaching them. There’s no way that’s true.”

John felt like she’d slapped him. How could she say that when they’d just been talking about their child?

“Sorry,” she said quickly, covering his hand with hers. “I don’t mean--”

He pulled his hand out from underneath hers. “You do mean it though. You seem disgusted with me, with the idea of Rose, with our life. I know you can’t remember any of this, but I’m still hurt by your obvious distaste for it. Couldn’t you at least try to be a bit more open minded and a bit less bloody harsh?” 

“Yes, of course,” his wife said immediately. “I’m sorry. This is just hard for me. That’s all.” 

“Well it’s hard for me too. You left to go to work the day before yesterday and everything was fine. Now you can’t remember anything and you're acting like a completely different person.”

“I said I was sorry,” Clara told him quietly, looking down submissively. John felt like it was an act. A very cunning, very good act, but an act nonetheless. “I’ll try harder.”

“Fuck that. I know you well enough to know when you’re pretending, Clara,” he said. “No, you’re not Clara. You’re Bonnie and I won’t call you by my wife’s name when you’re not her and you don’t want to be.”

“John--” she began.

But he was already on his feet. “I’m going to get Rose. I’ll send her to stay with my sister, but we’ll need to come back here to get her things. Please stay out of our way. I don’t want you upsetting her. Her happiness means everything to me.”

“I understand,” she said quietly. 

John didn’t answer her, and let the door slam behind him as he walked back into the house to get his keys. He left without looking at Clara, no, at Bonnie. He felt a sudden rush of grief for his wife who looked so like this woman, and yet was so different. 

Rose ran into his arms when he arrived at Ash’s house. 

“How is she?” Ash asked, her face reflecting only concern for Clara. 

John held Rose close in a hug, taking comfort from her small, warm body. “She’s not herself. She doesn’t remember anything.”

“Not even--” Ash pointed to Rose who had pulled back from John’s hug and was patting his hair. 

He smiled at his daughter. “No.”

Ash frowned, her hand smoothing down Rose’s back. “I’ll get your bag, honey.”

John thanked Ash profusely and worked very hard to engage with Rose on the way home, singing songs with her and listening to her babble. 

“Mummy?” she asked in a high, clear voice when they pulled up outside of their house. 

“Mummy’s not feeling well, love. She’ll be back soon and she misses you very much. In fact, I need to take care of her so I’m going to take you to Auntie Donna’s for a few days, okay?”

Rose nodded, her brown eyes and short brown hair a close to carbon copy of her mother’s. “Auntie Don Don.” At least she liked Donna, and the feeling was very mutual. His sister doted on Rose and while initially very skeptical about his relationship with Clara - largely due to the considerable age difference - the arrival of Rose had gone a long way towards his sister accepting his wife. 

John unclipped Rose from her car seat. “Let’s get some of your things and then we’ll go see Aunty Donna, okay?”

“Pretty dress,” Rose told him seriously. 

“Yes,” he agreed, knowing he’d let her pack whatever she wanted. 

Inside the house he looked for evidence of Bonnie, but there was none. He didn’t care where she was as long as Rose didn’t see her. He packed quickly, distracting his daughter with choosing a soft toy to bring. This resulted in a lot of changing her mind and in the end she chose three and John let her take them all. 

He helped her into the car again, and as he did he looked up to their bedroom window to find Bonnie looking out, a strange expression on her face.


	4. Chapter 4

As Bonnie looked out the window at the child holding John’s hand a sudden rush of something unfamiliar, warm and utterly maternal hit her. She’d known from the photos downstairs that Rose resembled her but actually seeing the living, breathing smaller version of herself just about brought Bonnie to her knees. 

She didn’t move from the window for a long time after John drove off. Her head was racing, frantically trying to process all of the new information. She was a mother. She’d had a child with that man, with her pretend husband. Why would she do that? Why would her employers let her do that? The standard protocol was if an operative got pregnant on a job they had an abortion, preferably without their mark knowing. But for reasons unknown to Bonnie, she had not only told John, but agreed to go through with having a child. And now that child was a living, breathing little person who would be forever affected when her mother left her and moved on to her next job never to see her again. 

Bonnie needed to shake herself out of this feeling and use the time John was out of the house constructively. She needed to find the contact information for her handler. They were encouraged to hide such things in plain sight, so she started by looking around the bedroom she and John shared.

She checked the drawer next to her bed where she found a bunch of medication, all of which had John’s name on it. Was he sick? The medical names meant nothing to her, but she memorized them to look it up on the internet later on. There was a journal in her handwriting, and she flicked through the pages. It was mostly about Rose, and sometimes about John and Rose. Bonnie recognized it for what it was - her desperate attempt to record everything about a child she knew she would have to leave behind at some point. It hurt her heart, which irritated her enough to toss it back in the drawer with an angry huff. 

She scanned the bookshelves, stopping randomly to open various tomes. Frustrated with the bedroom, she headed downstairs. She knew exactly what she was looking for - a green piece of paper with a series of digits on it that would look like phone numbers to someone else but to her it would be a code to access her handler who could tell her what the fuck was going on. 

Increasingly frustrated, Bonnie tore apart the downstairs bookcase, eventually flicking through and tossing books heedlessly on the ground. This is how John found her several hours later. She hadn’t even heard him open the front door. 

“Doing a little rearranging of the bookshelves?” he inquired, dropping his keys in the ugly fish dish by the door. 

He’d come in at a bad moment for Bonnie. She was finding nothing and she was tired and emotional. She watched him shrug his navy blue coat off and hang it carefully on the coat hook by the door. 

“I’m not sure what I’m doing,” she said in a quiet voice, looking at the piles of books around her. “Is Rose okay?”

John gave her a penetrating look, stepping over some of the strewn books to come closer. “She’s fine. I saw you looking at her out of the window upstairs.”

Bonnie nodded, her eyes on the book in her hands. “I don’t remember her, but I felt something when I saw her. I know she’s mine.” She looked up at John. “Ours.” 

He sat on the couch and patted the cushion next to his. “Come and sit.” 

Bonnie did, not protesting when John wrapped his arm around her, and in fact she leaned a bit into his hug. 

“I’m sorry I got shout-y before," John said. "I’m fairly selfish by nature and what I’m mostly thinking about right now is how my life is affected by your inability to remember me and Rose. But I’m sure it feels hard and confusing to be you right now.”

Bonnie nodded, hiding her face in John’s soft blue jumper. She felt his hand cup the back of her head and allowed him to offer her comfort. It felt right being in his arms and while part of her felt the incredible wrongness of that, another part that was maybe muscle memory was comforted by his arms, his scent, his mere presence. 

“I’m sorry I said I hated children,” Bonnie said. “I found my journal upstairs. From that I know enough about myself to see I love Rose very much.”

John’s lips ghosted in her hair. “Indeed you do.” 

Bonnie raised her head. “And I love you?” 

He smiled at her. “So you tell me.”

Bonnie smiled back and moved forward to touch her lips to his. It was a soft, chaste kiss, at least initially. Bonnie wasn’t sure who changed the kiss, who opened their mouth first and who was responsible for her suddenly straddling John’s lap. It was him who slowed them down though, him who carefully and gently pulled away. 

“As much as I’m enjoying this,” he told her, his voice husky, “I don’t think it’s the best idea right now. You need less confusion, not more.” 

Just like in the hospital Bonnie wanted to argue that sex wouldn’t be confusing for her at all, and might be just what the doctor ordered. But he was probably right. She didn’t feel in control right now and that was important in her profession, and to her personally. She wouldn’t have it until she spoke to her handler, or she remembered the last five years. One of those options was out of her control, the other was in her control if only she could find the bloody piece of green paper. 

John smiled and hooked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “Are you hungry? I can cook some scrambled eggs.”

Bonnie was hungry, so she nodded and he helped her off his lap. 

“Do I cook for you?” she asked when they were in the kitchen.

“Sometimes,” he said, opening the fridge. “You’re not a gourmet cook or anything, but you can cook. I usually do it though because I’m home more.”

“And you’re a writer?” she asked, sitting on the kitchen table. 

“Yes, I write about politics.” 

Maybe that’s why he was a mark. “What sort of politics?” she asked. 

“The international economic kind.” 

Yes, that would definitely make him a mark. “Do I know anything about international economics and politics?” 

John laughed. “No. But if you wanted to learn, you could. You’re very clever.” 

A bit too clever, Bonnie thought. She was sure she knew all about John’s work and probably had to work quite hard to hide that knowledge from John. 

“And we met at the university where you used to teach politics?” 

“I still do teach there, actually,” he said. He started to light the gas stove and loud clicks filled the room, causing Bonnie to jump. “You okay?” 

Bonnie nodded. “Yes, I just got a fright.” From a stove. Strange, but it definitely wasn’t the weirdest thing to happen to her in the last 24 hours. 

John rubbed her back a few times, offering comfort Bonnie desperately wanted. What was wrong with her? She was not a touchy feely person. She was a ‘mind my personal space’ person. Maybe being a mother had changed that. Mothers were always being touched by their children so maybe she’d gotten used to it and now she needed it. God.

“Really, are you okay Clar-- Bonnie?” 

The correction stung but she ignored the stab of pain and nodded. “So you still teach at the uni sometimes?”

John whisked the eggs. “Yes. I’ll teach more when Rose is a bit older. For now I’m trying to write a book and writing political pieces for various newspapers. It doesn’t bring in a lot of money but we don’t really need a lot of money.” 

“And I teach?” She was still struggling with that one. 

“Yes, you teach English.” He glanced at her. “You’re very good at it.”

“Miss Oswald? Mrs Smith?” 

“Miss Oswald,” he confirmed, pouring the eggs into the saucepan. 

“Didn’t you want me to take your last name?” Bonnie asked. 

John shrugged. “I didn’t mind. Smith is a boring name and Oswald suits you very well.” He gave her a fond look Bonnie couldn’t return. “Why were you rearranging the books?”

Bonnie was surprised by the question and didn’t have an immediate answer. “I’m not sure. I just needed something to do with my hands.”

John didn’t reply to that, and she wondered if the lie was good enough. Too late now. Bonnie was quiet as John stirred the eggs until they were fluffy. She arranged the plates and knives and forks and when the toast was ready they sat down to eat a simple but good meal. 

“Tell me how we met?” she asked when they were done. She wanted to know for two reasons: firstly because it would reveal at least something about her cover and her mission with him, and secondly because she wanted to know how she made this man love her. 

John sat back in his chair. He’d put his knife and fork on the centre of the plate carefully and precisely and Bonnie wondered if that’s how he did everything in life - how he wrote his articles, how he took care of Rose, how he loved her. 

“Okay,” he said, and Bonnie waited to hear the story.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the beginning of the Alternate universe - College/University tag. We'll be re-visiting that part of John and Clara's story on and off as we proceed. :)

Five years ago  
University of Glasgow  
Glasgow, Scotland

John walked into the office without knocking, his eyes on the newspaper in his hand. 

“Just what we need, a political shit show on the front page of The Herald,” he said. “Have you read this?” He glanced up to find himself looking into the very pretty face of a young woman sitting on Raymond’s desk. She was wearing an impossibly short yellow dress made mostly decent by black tights. 

“I did read it,” the young woman said with a dimpled smile. “It didn’t mean very much to me I’m afraid.”

John looked back at the door. It had DR. RAYMOND STILLMAN written on it, so at least he was in the right office.

“Is Ray about?” John asked, keeping his eyes away from the hem of the young student’s skirt. 

“He just popped out to copy something for me.”

“You’re his student.”

The young woman smiled and nodded. “Not a very good one, but yes, I’m his student assistant.” God but she was pretty, huge brown eyes, a cute little nose and straight glossy dark hair. And easily young enough to be his daughter. 

“Here you are Clara.” Ray’s voice came from outside the office. “Oh John. I thought you might be coming around for a chat after I saw the front page of The Herald.” 

John nodded. 

Ray passed Clara a few sheets of paper. “Did you meet Clara Oswald? She’s a student of mine.” He frowned at the young woman. “Get off the furniture Clara.”

The young woman bounced off the desk with a giggle. She was tiny. And young. And a student. 

“Nice to meet you Professor…?”

“Doctor. Just the Doctor,” John said.

“Not that he’s pretentious or anything,” Ray put in dryly. “He’s Doctor John Smith. He lectures in politics and cares far too much about such things.”

Clara laughed again and for one insane moment John wanted to capture the sound and keep it close to him. 

“Nice to meet you,” he said awkwardly. 

Clara gave them both a cheery little wave and left, closing Ray’s office door behind her. 

“She’s twenty-five by the way,” Ray said.

“What?”

“I just wanted you to know she was a reasonable age.” 

“Reasonable? I’m double her age. Well, almost.” He was forty nine. “And she’s a student so you can’t be suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”

Ray gave him a decidedly amused look. “Whatever, old man. Do you want to discuss the travesty that is the front page of The Herald or not?”

John wouldn’t speak to Clara again for several months, although he saw her a few times around campus. Getting coffee, walking to class. He smiled at her once from a distance and he thought she’d smiled back. Another time she’d chirped a happy “Morning Doctor!” as she passed him in the coffee shop. He thought he managed to say hello back. 

Then she appeared at his office door one dreary mid-winter afternoon. It was barely four o’clock but the sodden grey sky and wind whipped rain was so uninviting through his office window he was contemplating staying on at work rather than brave it to go home. There wasn’t much at home for him anyway and his thoughts turned as they often did to why he was even still here in Glasgow. 

“Hello Doctor.” 

John swiveled around from looking out the window to see Clara Oswald. “Yes?”

She smiled, and her dimples were very cute. “It’s traditional to say hello back you know.”

“Yes,” John said stupidly. “Hello.”

She tilted her head a bit, still smiling. “Do you remember me?” 

“Do I…? Yes, yes of course. Clara Oswald. Ray’s student. You were wearing a yellow dress that was--” He was going to say too short, “--very nice.”

Clara was still smiling, but she blinked at him like that wasn’t the answer she was expecting. And John supposed in hindsight it wasn’t. He cleared his throat and looked away from her brown eyes that held just a bit too much amusement. 

“Right, well, Ray - he lets me call him by his first name you know - he asked me to bring this over to you.” She waved a file around. 

“In this weather?” John asked, a bit horrified that his colleague would send a young woman out in rain like this.

“Ah,” Clara said. “Well, the truth is he sent me over an hour ago and I ran into some mates on the way here and went to have a coffee so really, it’s my own fault I find myself trapped in a handsome man’s office while a thunderstorm rages.”

Handsome? John took a closer look at Clara. Did she just call him handsome? Ridiculous. He was three times her age. He could be her great grandfather. It occurred to John that the only time he was prone to over-exaggeration was when he was panicking. He must be panicking now. 

“Right,” he said. “Right, well, I think I have an umbrella you could use and perhaps my coat?” 

Clara ignored his offer and plopped down on his couch. “No offence, Doctor, but I don’t think either of those are going to cut it in that thunderstorm, so do?” She nodded towards his window.

He looked out the window again and it did indeed seem to be getting worse out there. 

“You don’t mind if I just sit here on your couch? I’ve got plenty of work to do.” She hauled her bag up off the floor. “I’ll be quite as a mouse,” she stage whispered, smiling at him again. 

John imagined he looked mildly horrified because Clara’s smile faltered. 

“Or I could go…”

“No,” he said. “No, of course not. You’re welcome to my couch. To sit on and do your work, not to…you know, sleep on.”

Her smile reappeared. “No sleeping, I promise.”

It took John a solid 45 minutes to put Clara on his couch out of his mind and focus on the work in front of him. Even then, his mind would twitch towards thoughts of her every time she turned a page, reached for something in her bag or shifted on the couch. But he managed to get some work done and he doubted she was distracted by him. 

Three hours later Clara stood up and stretched. She was wearing another very short dress or skirt, again with thick black tights. As she lifted her arms in the stretch, the skirt slipped up a few extra inches and John immediately averted his eyes and looked out the window. The storm seemed to be raging on and by 7:00pm it seemed worse than at 4:00pm.

Clara appeared beside him. “It looks worse,” she commented. 

“Hmmm,” he agreed, trying to look at her out of the corner of his eye.

“Do I make you uncomfortable, Doctor?” she asked suddenly. 

He did look at her then, surprised by the question. “Why would you say that?”

“You have this look on your face…like you can’t wait to get away from me.” She put her hand on his arm, a soft, kind gesture. “It’s no problem, I can work elsewhere. I’ll probably spend the night curled up in an empty office. I’ve slept in worse places. I am a student, you know.”

“No, please. I don’t want you wandering about the building with no one with you.” He thought about saying he owed her a duty of care but he figured she thought he was odd enough at this point without him saying something old fashioned like that. “I’m sorry I’m not more friendly,” he blurted out. “I don’t know what to say to young women.”

She squeezed his arm. That’s right, she was still touching him. Why was she doing that? “But you must know loads of young women. You teach them, don’t you?”

He nodded. “But that’s teaching. I don’t talk with them outside of their school work.”

“Oh.” Clara’s hand fell from his arm and John felt the loss of warmth immediately. She popped herself up so she was sitting on his desk just like she’d sat on Ray’s the day he met her. She’d taken her shoes off at some point and she was swinging her legs.

“You’re so tiny,” he said suddenly, without thinking. 

She laughed, and it was a delightful, sweet sound. “Have you considered that I’m perhaps the right size and you are just too tall?” 

He chuckled. 

“You look kind when you smile,” she said. “Otherwise you’re a bit grumpy looking.”

“I am not,” John said, although he had been told this many times previously. “It’s just my face.”

“Ah,” Clara said, poking his leg with her toes. “You have resting grumpy face.” 

He asked what that was and received quite a detailed description of something called ‘resting bitch face’. It made a certain amount of sense and really, John would’ve let Clara recite the phone book to him and still watched her with the same slightly dazed expression. 

“Do you think there’s anything to eat around here?” she asked.

He nodded. “Vending machines in the foyer.” 

They walked down together and John insisted on paying for the sub-par vending machine dinner they put together. Clara told him about her studies while they ate - she was planning to be an English teacher - and how she was Ray’s teaching assistant for the semester. 

“I think it’s mostly because I’m older than the other students. He thinks it gives me some authority,” she confided as she bit into a crisp. 

“I supposed it could,” John said, “if you didn’t look like a tiny little pixie.”

Clara’s mouth dropped open and a bit of crisp fell out. “Well at least I don’t look like a grey-haired stick insect!”   
She stood up, and John could see his thoughtless words had upset her. 

“Wait, Clara,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t--”

“But you did!” she said, tears in her eyes. “I’ll have you know some people think I’m fine to look at! Pretty even!”

“You’re very pretty.”

Clara was staring at him in surprise, her mouth open and a tear slipping down her cheek. 

“It’s the first thing I noticed about you in Ray’s office. Well, the second thing really because first I noticed how short your dress was.” He gently wiped the tear away from her cheek. “In a good way,” he amended, lest she take offence at that. 

She sniffed and smiled. “Oh.” 

“But I shouldn’t really think such things about you because you’re a student and you’re much younger than me. Surely you have a boyfriend?” 

She shrugged. “Sometimes.” 

“Sometimes,” John repeated.

“He’s a bit of an idiot,” she admitted. 

“Ah. Well, young men can be idiots for pretty girls. Old men too.”

Clara swatted him on the arm. “You talk like you’re two thousand years old! How old are you anyway? 45?”

“49,” he said. “Twice your age. That’s pretty old.”

Clara scoffed. “80 would be pretty old.” 

“I’m closer to 80 than 20.”

Clara blinked at him and a laugh bubbled out of her. “You don’t teach maths, do you? You’re the same distance from 20 as you are from 80!”

“That does not make me feel better,” John told her feelingly. 

She patted his arm. “Lots of women like older men. It’s totally a thing. Unless you’re married?” Her eyes dropped to his left hand where he still wore Melody’s ring. “Oh! You are.”

“Er, no. I’m a widower. My wife died almost ten years ago.” He still wore his ring for a number of reasons, some simple and some complicated.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” he said, used to such responses after almost a decade of being a man without a wife. “And I believe some women might prefer older men but very few prefer old men.”

Clara grinned. “No problem then because you’re not old!” 

“You really are a glass half full sort of person, aren’t you?” John smiled at Clara. 

“I suppose so.” She reached for the plastic looking cheese dip. “If there’s a wind about I’ll generally whistle into it.”

“There are worse philosophies, love.” 

Clara tilted her head to look at him. “Did you just call me love?” 

John wanted the floor to swallow him up. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I did that.” Except he did. He liked Clara Oswald and that meant big trouble. 

 

Bonnie was looking at him, hugging her knees to her chest with a funny little smile on her face as he relayed the story of how they’d met. 

“Why did you keep making all those remarks about my appearance?” she asked. 

John looked at his tiny wife with her entire body folded on a chair. “I found you rather striking and in typical me fashion I seemed unable to stop remarking on it.”

Bonnie smiled at him. “It was quite rude of me to call you a grey-haired stick insect, wasn’t it?”

“A bit. But let’s face it - you were provoked and I do somewhat resemble a grey-haired stick insect.”

Bonnie laughed, and John thought it might have been the first time he’d heard her really laugh since she’d woken up at the hospital and forgotten him and Rose. 

“What are you thinking?” Bonnie asked softly.

“Just how much I miss my wife.”

Bonnie looked down at her empty plate. “I wish I could remember.” 

“Hopefully you will,” he said, standing up and picking up both their plates. 

“Will you tell me the story of when we kissed for the first time?” Bonnie asked.

“Another time.” John turned on the tap. “Why don’t you head up to bed?” 

A little silence. “Where am I supposed to sleep?” 

John shut off the tap and turned around. Bonnie had a jumper on and she’d pulled the sleeves down to cover her hands. She looked vulnerable, and John didn’t think it was an act. 

“Where would you like to sleep?” he asked gently.

“With you.” The response came swiftly. 

“Then our bed upstairs is fine. I’ll see you up there.” God help him. 

She nodded. “Thank you for dinner and for telling me about when we first met.” She looked vulnerable, and John’s heart ached a little for her.

“You’re welcome.” He turned the water back on, wishing more than anything Bonnie was his wife again because he was starting to feel something for the strange woman inhabiting his wife’s body and that wasn’t going to turn out well for any of them.


	6. Chapter 6

Bonnie wasn’t sure what to expect from John when he joined her in bed half an hour after their conversation in the kitchen. While her preference was sleeping in the nude, she found some nighties in Clara’s drawers and assumed that as the mother of a small child Clara wouldn’t sleep naked. 

To Bonnie’s relief, John didn’t seem to sleep naked either. Why she should feel relieved about that she wasn’t sure. It’s not like she’d jump him if he was naked. Would she? No.

“I can hear you thinking,” John said, sounding amused.

“Sorry,” Bonnie said unthinkingly, causing John to laugh. “Did I just apologise for thinking too loud?” 

“Yep,” John said, still chuckling. 

Bonnie couldn’t help but laugh a little too. “I guess I’m just so used to apologising to you.”

“You don’t have to,” John said, shifting a little in the bed. “I know this isn’t your fault.”

That was true. But there was an awful lot here that was Bonnie’s fault. John’s story of how they met was quirky and sweet, but she’d seen the truth of it. As Clara she had single mindedly pursued John, found his buttons and pushed every single one. It was pure dumb luck that he was attracted to her from the start. If he hadn’t, she would’ve made him love her anyway. It was part of the reason why she was so good at this job. And that’s what John was - a job. And okay, there was Rose, but that was a mistake. John seemed to adore his daughter and she’d be fine with him when Bonnie moved on. 

“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?” John asked.

Bonnie sighed. “Maybe. I can sleep elsewhere if I’m disturbing you?” 

“No, you’re fine. I’m just worried, that’s all.”

“You’re worried about Clara, not me.” 

Silence. “You’re sort of the same person.”

“Sort of, but not quite.”

“No,” John admitted. “Not quite.”

“Did Clara have problems sleeping?”

“Sometimes.”

“What helped her get to sleep?”

“Er…I don’t think any of that would be appropriate.” John sounded faintly embarrassed.

“Sex sends her to sleep?” Bonnie laughed, but it was short lived because John rolled over to trap her very easily under his much bigger body. His hands caught hers by her sides and she could just see his eyes fixed intently on hers.

“Not exactly,” he murmured, eyes wandering over her suddenly warm face. 

“What sort of dynamic do the two of you have?” she asked, having been curious about that from practically the moment she woke up and the way John kissed her at the hospital.

John shifted off her and Bonnie missed the weight of him, the feel of him on top of her. 

“I don’t think that’s an appropriate topic of conversation.”

“I am your wife.”

“Are you?” John said mildly. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

Bonnie lay there for a while, waiting to see if John would fall asleep. 

“I’m not asleep,” he announced ten minutes later. “And neither are you.” 

“No.”

“Want to hold my hand?” he asked.

“What?” 

“Never mind,” he said. “I just thought it might comfort you somehow but that’s silly I suppose. You don’t know me. It would be like holding hands with a stranger.”

“That’s not true,” Bonnie found herself saying. “My body remembers you.”

“Does it now?” There was something in John’s tone, something that hinted again at the sort of relationship he must have with Clara.

“It’s probably why I keep kissing you.”

“Twice. You’ve kissed me twice since the hospital and you’ve been very careful to not touch me in every other situation. I have to stop myself from touching you constantly,” he said, sounding frustrated. “I never realised how much I touched Clara. Gentle, every day touches. I feel bereft without them.”

Bonnie reached over to take his hand, threading their fingers together gently. “I know it’s not the same because I’m not Clara, not really, but if I can help…”

John gripped her fingers. “I miss her.”

Bonnie didn’t have anything to say to that, and she lay there for some time after John’s breathing evened out into sleep. A while after that she carefully removed her hand from his, slipped out of the bed and picked up her phone. The only place she hadn’t looked for her slip of green paper was John’s office and now was a perfect time to take a look-see. 

Focused as she was on finding the piece of paper, Bonnie didn’t miss the scribblings of John’s works in progress. Thanks to the irritating gaps in her memory she was not entirely sure why the government was so interested in John’s work, but she assumed it had to have something to do with his political connections. 

She scanned his bookshelves, pulling out each volume carefully before replacing it. It took about twenty minutes, and there was no slip of green paper. She was about to give up when she saw a volume on his desk with the tiniest piece of green poking out from it like a bookmark. Snatching the book up, she opened it to find the series of numbers she was looking for. Thank God.

Bonnie entered the series of numbers into her phone and her heart leapt when it began ringing. The usual false company greeting began and Bonnie entered the same series of numbers to get connected. 

“Where the hell have you been, Bonnie?” a male voice asked in a tone that somehow reflected paternal concern, anger and worry all at once. 

“Jack! Thank God.” Bonnie filled Jack in on the last 48 hours and her memory loss.

“Five years, huh?” Jack asked, sounding surprised. “You missed a lot.” 

“Oh good,” she said. “Now how about you fill me in, starting with John and how it is that I have a kid?” 

“Uh, that’s a good one, but I think we should meet face to face. When can you get away from the old man?”

“Don’t call him that,” Bonnie scolded.

Jack laughed. “You sounded just like your old self then.”

“We can meet tomorrow, I’ll tell John I’m going for a walk or something.”

“Yeah, he won’t want to come because of his walker I suppose.” 

“Jack!” 

Jack laughed again. “Apparently even without five years worth of memories you still has a soft spot for your mark.”

Her mark. Is that all John was? That didn’t feel true, but neither did a life as John’s wife and Rose’s mother. 

Jack named a café and gave her directions to it, assuring her it was nearby. 

“Love you,” Jack said, right before he hung up. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

Bonnie smiled. “Love you too.” She hung up, a soft smile on her lips. Jack was occasionally an idiot and often annoying but he was a good friend. 

“And exactly who was that?” John’s voice came from the doorway of his study and he did not look or sound happy. 

Damn.


	7. Chapter 7

John leaned against the door jam and regarded his wife. Bonnie gave him an easy smile. Too easy in John’s opinion. 

“That was Jack,” she said. “Do you know him?”

“No.”

“I knew him five years ago. Well, more than knew him - we were best friends. I called him because I thought maybe we were still friends.”

“And are you?”

Bonnie shrugged and for some reason the careless gesture irritated John. “Not as close. If you’ve never met him I guess life led us in different directions, but he was glad to hear from me.”

“And apparently you still love each other,” John said dryly.

“I’ve very loveable,” Bonnie said with a little smile.

John was surprised at her attempt at humour but squashed the part of him that automatically wanted to agree. “It’s 3am, Cla-Bonnie.” This woman was not his wife, and he would do well to remember that. “You couldn’t wait until morning?”

“Sorry,” she said, looking sheepish. “I get so lonely and the thought that Jack might be able to fill in some of the blanks…”

“What about me?” John said, hearing the frustration in his own voice. “I'm here. Why can’t you ask me?”

“I did. I have. You told me how we met. I just thought Jack might know other parts of me.” She winced a bit, and John thought he knew why.

“Jack was a lover too, I presume?”

“No! Well, once maybe years ago when we were all drunk. But no.” 

John’s mind snagged on the ‘all’, but he pushed past it. “I hate this. I absolutely hate it,” he said. “I hate that my wife and the mother of my child can’t remember a thing about us, I hate that you’re practically a stranger to me and I hate how good you are at lying. Clara isn’t like that. She’s the opposite of that.” John knew he wasn’t being fair. He knew he was taking his anger, his hurt, his lack of ability to control anything in this situation out on Bonnie but right now he didn’t care.

“We are the same person, you know,” Bonnie said. 

“Increasingly I’m finding that difficult to believe.”

Bonnie walked towards him and John wanted to move back but didn't. The end result was Bonnie invading his personal space and his nose being filled with the familiar scent of his wife’s shampoo. 

“How would you like me to prove it, John?”

John had a pretty good idea what Bonnie was thinking. That particular look in his wife’s eye usually meant all good things for him, but this was not his wife.

“How about you start with telling me what you were doing in a hotel room without your wedding rings and without me?” He knew it was a useless question to ask, he knew Bonnie didn’t have the answer. 

Surprise flickered across her lovely face and she moved back from him. “Was I having an affair?” 

John shrugged. “Before this if you’d asked me if Clara would cheat on me I would’ve said no. Now I’ve met you though, I could well believe you’d cheat on me so maybe I was wrong about Clara.” 

“What makes you think I might be the cheating sort?” Bonnie said, crossing her arms. 

“You don’t seem to care about much. I think you’d probably have an affair and barely even think about it afterwards. I can’t imagine you wanting to marry me. You’re thoughtless and careless and--”

“Stop it! You don’t know me. I barely know me. I want to know why Clara married you when you’re obviously hung up on the age difference, suspicious of everything she does and more interested in your child than your wife!”

“How dare you bring Rose into this! You know nothing about her. Nothing.”

“I know you’re closer to your child than your wife.” Bonnie frowned. “I don’t know how I know that, but I know Clara feels excluded from the relationship the two of you share and she thinks maybe you do that on purpose.”

John gaped at Bonnie. “That is not true.”

“It is, or at least it is for Clara,” Bonnie said calmly, her brown eyes meeting his. “I don’t know how I know that but I’m sure it’s the truth.”

John was floored. He had no idea Clara felt that way. He spent a lot of time with Rose - of course he did, he was her father, her primary carer - and they did have a close relationship. But it was different than the relationship he had with his wife. He flicked through his memories of recent events, trying to remember when he and Clara had spent time together, just the two of them. Maybe a few months back? Yes, a dinner party of an ex-colleague of his and he spent most of his time talking with old friends. Their partners were much older than Clara and he remembered thinking she seemed out of place and a bit quiet. Prior to that about the closest they got was falling asleep on the couch watching tv. When they first married they’d work together in the same room - she’d mark, and he’d write and they’d just be together. When was the last time Clara had sought out his company just to be together in the same space? When had he gone looking for her for the same reason? He couldn’t remember. 

Sex. It was good but not as good as it had been before Rose. He didn’t think Clara was unsatisfied but he knew he could be paying better attention. He could be more…thorough. His wife had some very specific needs in that area and they happened to dovetail perfectly with his. But he was twenty years older than her and while he still wanted and enjoyed sex, it wasn’t the pressing need it once was. Had he neglected Clara? Did she find someone who didn’t?

“Maybe I have access to Clara’s emotions, but not her memories,” Bonnie mused, obviously unaware of John’s runaway thoughts. “That would explain why you make me--”

“I make you what?” John asked sharply. He could almost feel his happy life with Clara and Rose coming unravelled and it filled him with fear and anxiety. 

“Want to fuck you.”

John had a feeling Bonnie said the word fuck in an attempt to shock him. Unfortunately for her he was in possession of all of his memories and his emotions and he and Clara enjoyed talking dirty. In fact there was something about his tiny, young, schoolteacher wife using dirty words that John really got off on. But this was not his wife. 

“Go fuck Jack,” he said gruffly. 

Bonnie gave him a hurt look that may or may not have been a lovely fake. “This is hard on me too,” she said. “Don’t you think I want to remember my life?”

John rubbed his hands over his face. They just didn't seem to get past this. “I’m sorry.” And part of him was. Hauling Bonnie over the coals for not being Clara was about as useful as screaming at a wall. It didn’t change a damn thing. “I just--”

“I know,” Bonnie said. “You miss her and I’m a poor substitute. I really am trying, John.”

He wanted to believe that she did but something just felt so wrong about her. Bonnie never would’ve fallen in love with him, never. She was young and vibrant and he could well imagine her with a man the same age, going to the pub and backpacking around Europe, drinking too much and having wild sex. With someone like her friend Jack, he supposed. She wouldn’t have looked twice at an old grey-haired academic. Which made him wonder why Clara had? In a strange way they were the same person.

“I don’t really believe that you’re Clara,” John admitted. “You feel all wrong. You never would’ve been interested in me.”

Bonnie looked a bit startled. “What?”

“You don’t look at me and see a husband, a lover. You look at me and see an old man, which of course I am compared to you. That makes me wonder how Clara ever saw me as those things.”

“Did you miss the part where I just said I want to fuck you?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Attraction is a weird thing and okay, if someone told me that five years down the track I’d be married to you I would’ve been surprised, until I met you and felt that…thing.”

“Thing?” John frowned.

“Chemistry or hormones or whatever.”

The more John thought about it the more it didn’t make sense that someone like Bonnie - like Clara - would be attracted to him. He’d always considered himself very lucky that Clara was attracted to him and accepted it as a gift from the universe. But faced with Bonnie, with evidence of Clara’s possible cheating in a hotel room without her wedding rings, well, it seemed ridiculous that such a beautiful woman would want him. 

“Look, I think you should go.”

“Go where? I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“You’ve got Jack - weren’t you just arranging to see him?” Part of John was screaming at him to keep Bonnie close, but the rest of him needed her away from him. Far away. He needed his wife, he needed Rose and his routine. He wanted to bring Rose home and he couldn’t do that with Bonnie here. And Bonnie was not his wife. He was sure of that. Maybe they were two parts of the same person but he didn’t want Clara’s body around without Clara in it. 

“See him, yes. Move in with him, no. What if he doesn’t want to help me?”

“Then let me know. I’ve got money. I’ll pay for an apartment for you if that’s what you want.” 

“What I want is to stay here.” Her voice had an oddly subdued note to it.

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“It’s been just over 24 hours, John.”

“I don’t want you here.”

“Why is it your decision?”

“I’m not saying I don’t want to see you. I’d be happy to see you every now and then.” Whatever that meant. “I need to do what’s best for Rose.”

“You said she’d be okay with Donna for a few days.” Bonnie’s small hand grasped his. “John. Give me another 48 hours. If you want me to go then, fine. But at least give me that.”

John regarded the serious young woman in front of him. What would Clara do if their situations were reversed? Would she throw his imposter out after 24 hours? He knew the answer already. Of course she wouldn’t. She’d be hurt, bewildered, upset…all the things he was feeling, but she wouldn’t let him wander around without her and the last five years of his memory. 

“Fine. But I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Clara. If our positions were reversed Clara wouldn’t let me wander about London.”

“I wouldn’t either,” Bonnie told him.

“Easy to say from your side of the fence,” he fired back. “And that just proves what I’ve always known - Clara is a better person than I am. I’ll give you 2 days, Bonnie, but then you go.” He turned to leave, thinking that the next two days couldn’t go quick enough.


	8. Chapter 8

Bonnie spent the rest of the night on the couch. She assumed John went back to bed and she hoped he was getting more sleep than she was. She gave up even pretending sleep was a possibility around six. Her first impulse was to bake a soufflé but as that was hardly a breakfast food for most civilised people she decided on savory breakfast muffins. Unfortunately she didn’t know where anything was in the kitchen so it took twice as long to find ingredients and even then John and her alter ego didn’t seem to have any roasted capsicums or mushrooms. 

Bonnie peeked into the bedroom with half a mind to get dressed but John was asleep and the bedroom was in pitch darkness. She didn’t know where anything was in the bedroom any more than she did the kitchen, so she discarded the idea. Closing the door carefully she headed back downstairs to the coat rack by the door. Her coat wasn’t going to cover her nightie or legs so she grabbed John’s, wound his scarf around her neck, and stepped into what she assumed were Clara’s boots. She wasn’t going to win any fashion prizes but she was only going to the corner store for mushrooms and roasted capsicums so who cared?

The shop was only a few blocks walk, but it was dark and freezing cold and John’s coat didn’t entirely cover her exposed legs. 

Bonnie found the mushrooms easily and decided to buy fresh capsicums and roast them herself. She lined up at the register behind a woman with a baby in a pram. 

“Morning Clara, you’re up early,” the woman said, turning around to smile at Bonnie. “Where’s Rose?”

Fortunately for Bonnie she had years of acting experience and she gave the woman an easy smile. “Still in bed with John, both of them fast asleep.” Bonnie waved the capsicums and mushrooms in a comical fashion and the woman laughed, easily entertained. “I couldn’t sleep, so breakfast muffins it is.”

“Any good news yet?” the woman whispered conspiratorially. 

“Not yet,” Bonnie said, figuring that was the safest answer to a question she had no context for.

The woman gave her a sympathetic face. “It must be hard for you both, wanting another child and being disappointed. I know when Jerry and I were trying every month was an absolute trial.”

Clara and John wanted another child? Or maybe just Clara did. Bonnie didn’t get the feeling John wanted another one, although he clearly adored Rose. 

“At least you have Rose.”

The words of one of Bonnie’s teachers at the agency echoed in her head, “Rarely does an empathic response begin with ‘at least’”. 

“Yes,” Bonnie agreed. “She’s a delight.” Hopefully that sounded maternal and appropriate. 

After waving the woman and her baby off, Bonnie paid for the vegetables and walked home pondering John and Clara’s life. Did Clara really want another child? It certainly didn't feel like it to Bonnie. One child could be chalked up to an accident and even then Bonnie was surprised she’d agreed to have the child. But wanting another child and apparently telling some random neighbourhood woman that she was actively trying? No way. Bonnie felt like she’d been given some sort of personality transplant to become Clara. She was still preoccupied with these thoughts as she opened the gate to John’s house. The front door was flung open and John stood there in his pyjamas with his hair looking wild. 

“Where were you?” His eyes raked over her in his coat. 

“Um…the shop?” Bonnie held up the plastic bag of vegetables. 

He sagged a little against the doorframe. “I thought you’d left.”

Bonnie refrained from pointing out that he’d told her to leave in the early hours of the morning. “Nope. Can I…?” She gestured into the house.

“What?” John frowned, looking somewhat like an adorably confused owl. 

“Can I come in? It’s cold out here and I--”

“Yes, yes, of course.” He stood back and Bonnie walked through the door. She unbuttoned John’s coat and was surprised to feel his hands on her shoulders gently easing the coat off. 

“Why are you wearing my coat?” he asked. “And why did you go to the shop in your nightie?” 

Poor John. He really wasn’t having a good morning. Bonnie fought an impulse to smooth his hair.  
She told him she wanted to make muffins, didn’t have the right ingredients and didn’t want to wake him.

“I ran into a woman with a baby at the shop.” 

“Oh?” 

John followed her into the kitchen and she opened the bag of mushrooms to peel them. She’d always peeled mushrooms even though a lot of people just scrubbed them. She liked peeling off the layer to expose the pristine hidden mushroom underneath.

“Do you and Clara want another baby?”

“No. Why would you ask that?”

Bonnie wasn’t sure if she should tell John that Clara had clearly told the shop woman they wanted another child but what did she have to lose? 

“The woman at the shop asked me if we’d had any good news yet and seemed to be under the impression we were actively trying to make that happen.”

John looked even more confused, if that was possible. “We agreed to stop with Rose. As I told you, we didn’t even mean to have her. I’m so glad we did but we don’t want any more children. Or at least I don’t.” John gave Bonnie a look that hinted at betrayal. “You said you can feel what Clara felt. Does it feel like she wants another child?”

“No,” Bonnie replied immediately, and it was the truth. “But I never wanted children so I’m not even sure how that would feel if I did.”

“It’s possible of course that Clara does want another child, perhaps just not with me. That would explain what you were doing in a hotel room without your wedding rings on.”

Bonnie met John’s eyes, just as surprised at the anger in his voice as she was with the accusations. She may not know what Clara was doing here with John but she was pretty sure her boss would be super pissed off if Bonnie blew a 5 year mission.

“That doesn’t feel right,” she said, impulsively reaching for John’s hand across the table. “Clara loves you and there’s no feeling at all of someone else, let alone wanting to have someone else’s baby and pass it off as yours. I mean really,” Bonnie gave a light laugh, “that sounds like a storyline from Emmerdale!” 

As opposed to marrying a man 20 years her senior and having a kid with him as part of a five year mission from a secret agency which, you know, isn’t soap-like at all… 

John did not smile, but neither did he move his hand away from Bonnie’s. 

“I don’t think I could cope with looking after a baby and Rose.”

“Couldn’t you get a nanny?” Bonnie removed her hand from John’s.

“I don’t want strangers in the house,” he said. 

Bonnie wondered why that was, and assumed it was something to do with his work. She looked up from the mushrooms to raise her eyebrows at him. 

“You’re not exactly a stranger. Even if you can’t remember, you’re my wife and Rose’s mother.”

“But you still wanted me to leave.”

John nodded. “This is too confusing and too difficult. You need to sort out who you are away from me and I need my daughter.”

“So you’re choosing Rose over me. Seems to be a theme.” 

“Don’t do that,” John said sharply. “Don’t talk about my relationships with my daughter and my wife like you know anything about them.”

“But I do. Not as much as I should considering I’m the wife in question, but I told you John, I can feel it.” 

“I am not discussing this with you, Bonnie.” He left the table, and it was probably for the best. Bonnie couldn’t wait to meet Jack and get some information on what she was doing here, who John was and what the hell Clara was doing with him.

Bonnie quickly finished making the muffins and while they were cooking she showered and dressed. She wasn’t meeting Jack until ten but as soon as she’d eaten she was getting out of the house.

“Do you know when you’ll be back?” John asked as she put her own coat on by the door, a muffin in a paper bag. 

“Does it matter?” 

“Yes,” John said in a neutral tone. 

The problem was Bonnie didn’t know because who knew how long the agency would want to talk to her for. “I’ll be back this afternoon. After I catch up with Jack I might try and visit a few places and jog some memories.” 

“Okay.”

They looked at each other for a few moments before Bonnie forced a smile and an awkward wave and left.

Bonnie took the tube to Crouch End and wandered about window shopping and trying on some clothes she probably couldn’t afford. She’d been sitting waiting for at least half an hour in the appointed coffee shop by the time Jack showed up, fashionably late as always. 

“Hey stranger,” he said with a wide grin. 

Bonnie threw herself into his arms, instantly feeling better than she had since she woke up in the hospital. She needed something familiar, something she was comfortable with and that something was Jack. 

“Woah, quite the welcome, pocket rocket,” he said, squeezing her back. 

Jack was tall, muscular and cookie-cutter handsome with dark hair and blue eyes. He’d spent a lot of time in the US as a kid so he tended to speak with an American drawl most of the time, although his Scottish accent was authentic enough to fool almost anyone. 

They sat down in the booth, and while both of them knew it would be unwise to speak too freely in public, one of the reasons Jack chose this coffee shop was the level of noise meant it would be difficult for anyone to overhear them. 

“So Rose,” Bonnie started, hoping Jack knew what she was asking.

“Yes. You meant for it to happen.”

“What? I would never--”

Jack shrugged. “You did. The idea of a blood cover was proposed by Missy and you agreed.”

Missy was their boss at the agency and a blood cover was having a child - sharing blood - with a mark. It was exceedingly rare. “I would never agree to that!” 

Jack held up his hands in a peace-making gesture. “You’ll have to ask Missy for the details. All I know is you made a conscious decision to make that happen and you didn’t seem unhappy with it.”

Bonnie would for sure be asking Missy about that decision as soon as possible. She couldn’t think of anything that would make her want to carry a man’s child, especially one who was a job. Maybe a second child is a plan Clara made with Missy, or maybe it’s just something she tells nosy neighbourhood mothers. Either way, Bonnie wanted to know.

“How’s your noggin?”

Bonnie shook her head. “Fine, but I can’t remember, Jack. I try and try but I don’t remember any of it. John keeps mentioning the hotel and my lack of wedding rings. I have no memory of that either.”

“Neither do we,” John said. “Maybe you were just scratching an itch. It happens, you’re allowed to.”

“It must have been some pretty amazing extra-marital sex to make me lose my mind,” Bonnie said dryly, earning a laugh from Jack. “Speaking of my husband, why am I with him? What’s the job?”

Jack opened his mouth to answer when a bored looking waiter stopped by their table to take their order. Jack gave him a flirty smile and engaged him in a too-long conversation about the bean and the blend. Jack was openly bisexual and received plenty of attention from all points of the gender spectrum. Bonnie cut him off to give her order and received a chilly look from the waiter. 

“You haven’t changed,” Bonnie told Jack. 

“Would you want me to?” he said with an unrepentant smile. 

Bonnie smiled back. “No.”

“You’re with him because of his political ties.”

“I figured that much. But why? He writes articles for mainstream newspapers.”

“He does more than that, but that’s not a conversation for now.”

Bonnie sighed. “He told me we met at the university.”

“Yes, he’d been difficult to engage - long term widow, grumpy, regimented routine. They’d tried older women before. Even Missy gave him a crack.” He winked at her.

“Missy and John?” Had her boss slept with her husband and the father of her child? She shouldn’t be surprised. John had probably slept with loads of people in his lifetime. Bonnie had slept with more than a few and she was twenty years younger.

“He wouldn’t even give her the time of day. Total and utter brush off. That’s when they sent you in.”

Bonnie smiled. John hadn’t wanted Missy. 

“You didn’t seem to have any trouble getting him to like you. Apparently John likes to rob the cradle,” he teased. “You were fucking him within weeks and it all unfolded from there. Are you still fucking him?”

“Funnily enough John isn’t overly keen on fucking the woman he thinks is inhabiting his wife’s body.” The opposite was true - Clara was inhabiting Bonnie’s body but of course John didn’t know that. 

“I’d be super keen. Sort of like cheating on my wife with her twin.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Bonnie rolled her eyes. “John’s not the cheating sort…even with his apparently mind-wiped wife.”

“So nothing. No kissing, no touching, no snuggling…”

“Well, maybe a little kissing.”

Jack gave Bonnie a gleeful smile. “I bet you could get him into bed. Maybe we should lay a bet on it…get it? Lay a bet?”

Bonnie smiled. “No bets. Things are complicated enough between John and I without jumping into bed with him.”

“Are you still attracted to him?” Jack looked genuinely curious. “I always wondered how you managed that attraction. He’s extremely clever and he would’ve known a young, hot little thing like you would be unlikely to want him.”

Bonnie shrugged. “Apparently I was quite convincing.” The truth was Bonnie was very definitely attracted to John. She had no idea why, but she was definitely into him. “Can I see Missy now?” 

“She’s out of the country. She’ll be back next week.”

Dammit.

“She did send a message though.” Jack slid a piece of folded paper across the table.

Their coffee arrived and Bonnie tuned out another round of flirting between Jack and the waiter to read the print out. 

Bonnie -

If you still don’t have your memories you need to pretend that you do. John’s profile indicates he will not want you around if you don’t start recovering your memories and acting like the wife and mother of his child he thinks he knows and loves. Jack will give you an encrypted USB with your reports for the last five years on it. You will use that information to pretend you are remembering and you will stay with John Smith and that child at all costs. This is non-negotiable. 

Be at the school on Monday at 0800. We’ll talk then.

\- Missy

The waiter left and John slid over the USB.

“Fuck,” Bonnie muttered, taking a long sip of her coffee that created a welcome burn in her mouth and throat. “What is this school?”

“The Torchwood School is a real school but it also acts as a cover for a few of us - you, me, Owen, Gwen, Toshi.” 

Bonnie didn’t know who any of those people were. “Sounds dangerous to have us all in one place.”

Jack laughed. “So you keep saying. You, Owen and Gwen are full time at the school. The rest of us pop in and out. It’s a small school and most of the students are talented and gifted.”

“And the agency can pluck them right out of there and into the line of duty.” Bonnie drained the rest of her coffee as Jack threw back his short black like a shot.

“Now you’re getting it.” Jack pulled out his phone. “I have to go, love. I’ll be in Monday at the school so come see me after your meeting with Missy.”

“Where’s the school?”

Jack looked a bit surprised, and his expression softened with something like sympathy. “How about I pick you up?” 

Bonnie nodded, feeling lost despite the USB in her hand. 

Jack slid over a padded envelope. “Use this to read the USB and make sure you burn Missy’s note.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Bonnie bristled as they both slid out from the booth. 

“Okay, small and feisty.” 

Bonnie socked him in the belly, relatively lightly. 

“If you want my advice, get John into bed. Your body will be familiar to him and he’ll have a harder time separating you from Clara.”

“Sex is not the answer to everything, Jack.” But Bonnie did see what he was saying. She just wasn’t sure how easy John would be to convince. Maybe there would be something in her reports on the USB to help her. 

“Quite right,” Jack agreed. “Sex is the question, yes is the answer.” 

She laughed and they hugged goodbye. 

Bonnie headed up the road, eager to find a quiet place to read about her life for the past five years. She hoped her reports were detailed because John really didn’t believe she was his wife and she had a lot of ground to make up before her meeting with Missy on Monday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far we've alternated POV between John and Clara for each chapter but the next chapter will be Clara too. 
> 
> Thank you so much for leaving comments and kudos. It makes me so happy that people are reading and enjoying my little story. :)


	9. Chapter 9

Bonnie headed for the Hornsey Library, the closest library to Crouch End. She assumed Clara had a laptop but as she had no idea where it was or what her password might be, there was no point trying to use it. 

Fortunately for Bonnie the London weather was fine - for once - so there weren’t many people interested in sitting in front of a library PC in the middle of the day. She quickly found a free computer, logged on and inserted the USB. A quick glance told her there were six years worth of weekly reports, making for over three hundred of the suckers. She didn’t want to read three hundred reports, but it wasn’t like she could skip a few years and expect to be up to speed on what was happening. Missy expected her to pretend to be recovering her memories and to do that she’d need to read every single report. And make detailed notes. 

Opening the first report, Bonnie found that the Bonnie of five years ago was fairly succinct in her reporting. The first few months of the first year were fairly ordinary with her reports detailing brief conversations she had with John. Their sexual relationship had begun quickly, but Bonnie-of-the-past wasn’t giving any details to benefit Missy or Bonnie-of-the-future. The first report of them having sex simply read “Had sex in J’s office.” After that reports of sex were common, but there were never any details, much to Bonnie’s disappointment. When John started kissing her it wasn’t hard to respond, but if for some reason they ended up in bed sometime soon she had no idea what their sex life was like after five years of doing it day in and day out. She’d never been in a sexual relationship with someone for that long. If John thought she didn’t remember their life then he’d understand if she acted different in bed. But if he thought she was remembering and she acted differently…she would be screwed and not in the good way. Bonnie paused, thinking that while she’d hoped she’d be a bit more forthcoming in the weekly reports, what had she really expected? “Dear Missy, John and I had sex in three different positions, starting with wheelbarrow, moving onto doggy and finishing in missionary. I came twice and John came once. Yours, Bonnie.” She sighed and kept reading. 

The reports tracked their relationship succinctly and with very little emotion. They moved in together. They married. It definitely appeared she was trying to get pregnant as there were entries about tracking her cycle and some frank statements that indicated John had no idea she was trying to get pregnant. What wasn’t obvious from the reports was whether or not Missy was solely responsible for the pregnancy scheme or if Bonnie had cooked it up with her. She couldn’t imagine agreeing to get pregnant at all, let alone for a blood cover with a guy who was a job, but maybe she wasn’t given a choice and Missy insisted. God knows Missy wasn’t the one for the collaborative approach. 

There were appendices to the reports in a separate file and these included scanned copies of John’s research notes. Most were of a political nature, but in an odd way. It seemed John was at heart more a hard science man than a political science man and some of the diagrams Bonnie had copied were for complicated machinery that made no sense whatsoever to her. But she’d had no interest in physics or engineering in high school and no memory of studying it since, so other than thinking “that makes no sense” she had no idea what it was. It made her pause though. John was clearly incredibly smart - although incredibly dumb about human emotions and duplicitous twenty-something spies out to fuck, marry and have a kid with him - but he seemed to live a simple unassuming life. If he was working on machinery, where was he keeping it? Not in the house, surely. Although she hadn’t had the opportunity to check through every room, the machinery in the diagram didn’t seem like it could be easily hidden. Bonnie checked the diagram again, but there was no scale to it. It could be the size of a matchbox or the size of a car. She leaned back in her chair, tapping her finger absently on the desk as she resumed her report reading.

“I’m pregnant. The lab confirmed it today. In two days I’ll tell John,” the next report began. The following report stated “Tearfully told John I thought I was pregnant. He was shocked. Went to the doctor who confirmed it. We talked about termination but as expected, John is leaning towards having it. By the next report I predict he’ll be happily buying baby clothes and looking forward to being a father.” The next report started with some sass: “It’s so boring being right all the time. John wants the kid. I gave a BAFTA award winning performance at being the tearfully joyful unexpectedly pregnant wife.” 

Bonnie felt a bit sick reading that. These reports read like Clara had no feelings for John and found him both boring and predictable. Bonnie definitely didn’t feel the l-word for John – she wasn’t even sure what loving someone would feel like – but she felt something. Maybe just chemistry, maybe just the feelings a woman had towards the father of her child? At the very least she didn’t feel the obvious disdain these notes seem to suggest towards him. But if Clara really did have feelings for John, Bonnie knew the last person she would tell would be Missy. The mission, John and Rose would be protected by Clara’s casual attitude towards them. If Missy thought Clara loved John, or Rose, she’d probably find a way to separate them. That made Bonnie feel a bit better about the tone of these reports. They didn’t feel like her. But then, who was she really? It was all so unknown. 

Bonnie checked the time. She was only about half way through her report reading but she told John she’d be back in the afternoon and it was just after four. She pulled the USB out and pocketed it before running a quick wipe of the machine, a handy little trick her training had taught her. Hopefully it still worked five years later. Bonnie frowned at the machine, knowing she couldn’t run the risk that her trick hadn’t worked. She sent Jack a text, impatiently waiting for his reply which came ten minutes later in the form of “LOL. Good thing you checked with me.” It took another ten minutes for Jack to hack into the library computer and wipe it clean. 

Bonnie flew out of the library door and rushed to the tube. Naturally she’d just missed one and rather than wait she decided to jog back to John and Clara’s. She arrived twenty minutes later, sweaty and red faced. John opened the door, Rose in his arms. 

“Hi Mummy,” Rose said, looking delighted. She held her chubby little arms out to Bonnie. 

Bonnie looked at her child, seeking and quickly finding the resemblance to herself, and to John. It moved her in a way that felt familiar and yet so alien. 

“Donna’s sick,” John told her, his words clipped as tried to distract Rose from wanting the woman she thought was her mother by turning around and heading for the kitchen. 

“Mummy!” Rose shouted, twisting in John’s arms. “Mummy!” 

“Hi Rose,” Bonnie said, smiling at the child as she looked over John’s shoulder.

Rose struggled to get to the woman she thought was her mother, starting to cry when John wouldn’t let her go. 

Bonnie reached forward and more or less received Rose as she threw herself into her arms. John had no choice but to let go of his distressed child, but he didn’t look happy about it. Bonnie held Rose close and gave John’s hot glare a cool look. He swept into the kitchen and Bonnie sat down on the couch with Rose, rubbing her back. 

“Missed you Mummy,” Rose told her when she’d calmed down a bit. 

“I missed you too,” Bonnie replied, because it seemed the thing to say. 

Rose leaned against her again and gave a big sigh. Bonnie tried to think of things to say to the child. 

“Did you have a nice time with Aunty Donna?” 

Rose nodded and they sat in silence for a while, Bonnie stroking Rose’s hair and back and Rose seemingly soaking in her mother’s presence. Bonnie closed her eyes, thinking over the reports she read, the clinical way she’d planned this child’s conception, the manipulation she’d used to trap John into marriage and fatherhood. 

“It’s time for dinner, Rose,” John said softly from the door. 

Bonnie’s eyes flew open in time to see John’s face as Clara must have seen it. He looked soft and loving. His face hardened as her eyes met his and Bonnie realized she had a huge amount of ground to make up if she was going to convince John she was Clara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Thanks for hanging in there. :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the title of this story is taken from Michael Jackson’s song Billie Jean – “And mother always told me be careful of who you love And be careful of what you do ‘cause the lie becomes the truth”.

After dinner and a bath, both of which Rose insisted only her mother help her with, John watched from the door as Bonnie helped the little girl into her bed. Rose apparently had no idea this wasn’t really her mother and while intellectually John knew this was a good thing, he wasn’t happy about it. Bonnie wasn’t entitled to Rose’s love. Bonnie wasn’t Clara. 

Rose pointed out a teddy bear and Bonnie asked her the bear’s name. Rose gave a comical gasp. “How could you forget Mummy?” 

John watched Bonnie pick up the bear. “I really don’t know,” she said, almost to herself. “You’d think I’d be able to remember.” 

He heard the frustration in Bonnie’s voice and against his will, his heart softened a little towards her. He needed to remind himself on a regular basis that this was hard for her too. He couldn’t imagine waking up in a life where he wasn’t Rose’s father or Clara’s husband and having to try and figure out how to survive without them, without his identity, and the people who meant the most to him. 

“Nigel. His name is Nigel,” Rose’s little voice piped up from the bed. 

“Nigel,” Bonnie said, staring at the brown fluffy soft toy. “That’s a funny name for a bear.” 

“Daddy named him, didn’t you Daddy?” Rose said, catching sight of him in the doorway. 

“I did,” John said, stepping into the room. “I happen to think Nigel is a fine, sensible name for a bear.”

“Oh yes,” Bonnie said, giving Rose a look that suggested anything but. 

Rose exploded into giggles and John smiled fondly at her.

“Shall I read you a story, love?” John asked his daughter. 

“Yes. Mummy read to me too.” 

John sighed, and he felt rather than saw Bonnie stiffen. He would be more than happy to read a story with his wife. But Bonnie wasn’t his wife, and there was no way either of them could explain that to Rose. 

“Sit this side,” Rose instructed.

That was the other reason John didn’t want to read Rose a story with Bonnie. Rose’s bed was small so usually he sat to one side of her and Clara fit neatly between his legs, leaning back against him. It was the perfect storytelling position because all three of them were able to hold the book and turn the pages. But John didn’t want to be that close to Bonnie. 

“Now,” Rose said, banging her small hand on the bed. 

“She gets her bossiness from you, obviously,” Bonnie said to him. 

He snorted and sat down next to Rose. He looked at the tiny girl, so much like her mother. She gave him a big smug smile. He had to laugh. He glanced at Bonnie and she was smiling too. It hurt his heart, these sweet parenting moments that he and Clara had shared, their hearts overflowing with love for this little person they’d created. Now he was sharing them with someone who couldn’t remember the thousands of moments that had preceded this one. John’s smile faded. 

“Mummy sit down.” 

Bonnie looked unsure where to sit and just as she was about to position herself on the end of the bed, John surprised himself by reaching for her arm. He tugged her down to sit between his legs. “You always sit here,” he murmured, gratified to feel a slight shiver run through her body as his warm breath caressed her ear. 

Bonnie sat stiffly, trying to keep some distance between their bodies. But with the angle they were on, she wasn’t going to be able to keep that up for long. Rose opened the book and in order for him to hold it, Bonnie had to relax into his body. Well, relax might be too strong of a word John thought, feeling the rigidity of her body against his.

“Mummy read!” Rose insisted when John began to read. 

He knew exactly why Rose wanted the woman she thought was her mother to read, just as he knew his daughter was about to be disappointed. He opened his mouth to try and make up an excuse when Bonnie started reading. To his immense surprise she did the very last thing he expected her to – she used different voices for the characters. Clara was a magnificent mimic for accents and she often employed those skills for Rose’s storybook characters. Was Bonnie remembering? John’s heart leapt in his chest. Why hadn't she said anything if she was starting to remember their life together? As Bonnie read, John did something he swore he wouldn’t. He closed his eyes, wrapped his arm around her waist, inhaled the familiar fragrance of his wife’s shampoo and pretended this was Clara. His Clara. It was so very easy to do as he listened to her read their daughter a story as she’d done hundreds of times before. She’d read to Rose before she was born and made him do the same, telling John they needed to get a head start on the baby’s reading skills. John had laughed, but he indulged her, reading to her swollen stomach and covering it with kisses. Oh how he missed his wife. But she was here now, he would pretend she was and he would pretend everything was okay. 

But all delusions come to an end and when Bonnie finished the story and Rose said “Again!” Bonnie had melted into him at some point and suddenly John felt wrong about it. Maybe she was remembering and maybe she wasn’t. Until he figured that out, this was not Clara. He pushed her a little to create much needed space between them and she immediately sat up. 

He pulled the book gently from Rose’s hands. “Time for sleep.” 

Rose pouted. “Not sleepy.” 

Bonnie stood up and John did too, feeling several things pop and creak. “You want to be all rested for school tomorrow, yes?” he asked his daughter. 

Rose gave a begrudging nod. “Mummy stay for a while?” she asked him. 

John kept his eyes on his daughter, unable to look at Bonnie until he got his defences back in order after his little indulgence during story time. He was so desperately hoping she was remembering, but maybe it was just a coincidence. If his work had taught him anything in recent years it had taught him that hope was painful. 

“If she wants,” he said shortly.

Rose looked past him and gave Bonnie pleading blue-grey eyes that were so much like his.

“Of course,” Bonnie said. 

John leaned over to kiss Rose and wish her sweet dreams. He paused at the door to look at the two of them in the bed before closing the door behind him. He stood in the hall. He’d wait for Bonnie. It was almost painful how much he wanted her to remember being Clara. That raised another issue though…one that had been troubling him since she’d woken up at the hospital. He’d done some research and most people with amnesia didn’t wake up as someone else. Sometimes people woke up without memories and maybe a changed personality, occasionally even speaking in a different accent. But it was rare, and Bonnie was such a defined personality, not a filler for the absence of personality.

John had also researched multiple personality disorder, or dissociative identity disorder as it was known these days. He made a mental note to call a psychiatrist. Maybe Bonnie would agree to see one. God, he just wanted to know if she had remembered anything. 

When Bonnie came out of Rose’s room John let her gently close the door before he came up behind her like a shot from a gun, pushing her body up against the wall with his. He was careful not to hurt her, as always. 

“You read that book just like Clara. She always did the voices, just like that. Are you remembering things? Do you remember who you are?” 

Bonnie looked at him with big, brown eyes. “Yes. Well, a little bit. I didn’t know I remembered doing the voices until I started doing them.”

“What else do you remember?” he demanded. 

She swallowed. “Just little things. I remember we had sex for the first time in your office at the university, even though I can’t really remember much of what we did. I remember finding out I was unexpectedly pregnant with Rose and how I was so scared and you were so sure we should have her.” 

John pulled Bonnie into his arms. “Thank God,” he whispered. “Thank God you’re remembering.” He kissed her hair, then her forehead and then it just seemed natural to kiss her lips. She kissed him back. He wanted her, wanted to believe she was becoming Clara again. He trailed his mouth down her throat, feeling her squirm against him as he kissed the sensitive skin of her neck. He bit down a little. Clara had always liked it a bit rough and he was rewarded now with a sexy gasp. He pulled back, even though he wanted nothing more than to bury everything he had inside of Bonnie until his wife came back to him. 

“This probably isn’t a good idea,” he said, his breath coming a little too fast. 

“Probably not,” she agreed, wrapping her arms around him tighter. 

His mouth found hers again and she kissed like Clara kissed; open mouth, sweet tongue and little happy murmurs. She tasted like Clara too, sweet and just _Clara_. John groaned as her hand dropped to the bulge in his jeans. He caught her hand with one of his and used the other to tilt her chin so she was forced to meet his eyes. Her face was flushed, her eyes slightly glazed. Fuck she was gorgeous. 

“What do you remember about the first time we had sex?” 

She held his gaze and he suddenly felt like he could see the lie dancing in her eyes. If she told him she knew, he would know this wasn’t his Clara. Not yet, and maybe not ever. 

Instead she reluctantly shook her head. “Just little glimpses. Your office. The desk. The window. I want to remember more. But no.” Her head dipped in something like regret. 

John felt something release inside him. She didn’t lie to him. Just like Clara, who was perhaps the most honest person John knew. He loved her for that honesty and he hadn’t realized how much the betrayal of her being at a hotel without his rings on her finger had affected how he felt about Bonnie. A thought suddenly occurred to John - If he was so insistent on Bonnie not being Clara then he should equally assume that when she was at the hotel it was Clara who possibly betrayed him and not Bonnie. 

He cupped Bonnie’s cheek. “It’s okay love.” He could see the tears in her eyes so he pulled her forward into a hug. She hugged him back, her arms tight around him. “Why don’t we go to bed?”

She pulled back to give him a knowing look. 

“To sleep,” he clarified. 

She sighed and he watched her hands as she smoothed them over his chest, straightening his shirt. It was a very Clara-like gesture. 

“Maybe you could tell me a bedtime story about the first time we had sex?” 

She gave him such a hopeful look that John had to chuckle. 

“That all depends,” he said. “Do you plan to be a good girl?” 

She cocked her head for a moment before opening her mouth and then closing it again. She popped up on tip toes to throw her arms around his neck. He bent down to allow her to do so. 

“I want to say yes,” she whispered in his ear. “But I’m trying to be honest.”

He laughed softly. “Do you think you can be a good girl from now and when we get into bed in five minutes?”

She pulled back and gave him a mock serious look. “I’ll do my best, Sir.” 

His eyebrows raised at the honorific, but he didn’t see any recognition on Bonnie’s face. “That’s all I ask,” he murmured, smoothing her shiny hair back into place. He stepped back from her. “Let’s go. Story time awaits.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've added the BDSM tag to the story starting this chapter. I've dropped a few little hints here and there, but in this chapter they definitely become more explicit. Speaking of explicit, I've kept the rating as Mature but that may change as we progress. Thanks for hanging in there between updates. :)

By the time she completed her ablutions and got into bed, Bonnie felt that all too familiar exhaustion from trying to be Bonnie-turning-into-Clara for John. Added to that was the unexpected arrival of Rose and trying to be Clara-the-mum for her. Poor Rose. She was too little to understand what was going on and being around her made Bonnie nervous. She’d already made one mistake by asking the name of Nigel the bear. At least using the voices while reading to Rose had been a stroke of genius for both the kid, and John. There was a tiny bit of relief in that moment. Maybe she would remember what it was to be Clara. But then she’d still be Bonnie-pretending-to-be-Clara. God, how had she done it for four years without going stark raving mad?

John slid into the bed and Bonnie shifted so she was cuddled loosely against him. She waited for him to inch away, to reject her, but all he did was shift slightly to accommodate her. Just like when they were reading to Rose. Bonnie opened her eyes. “Were you pretending I was Clara when I was reading to Rose?”

John turned his head, and there were all sorts of flickers in the grey-blue depths of his eyes. “Yes.” He hesitated. “Should I apologise?”

“No. Seems natural enough. Especially since I am Clara. Well, sort of.”

“Do you think…is it possible that perhaps you’re suffering from some sort of psychiatric disorder?”

Bonnie almost wanted to giggle. It was a reasonable suggestion. John had a very orderly mind and he wanted to slot what was happening to his wife in a neat little compartment. Not that mental illness was a “neat” compartment by any stretch of the imagination. However, it would be a compartment and that would be something. 

“Like a multiple personality disorder? Maybe, I guess. Seems a bit weird it would just suddenly happen though.”

“’Bit weird’ is an understatement for what’s going on with us right now.” He paused. “I did some reading and it seems it can just happen.”

“I guess it’s possible then.” Bonnie knew what was coming. “You want me to see a shrink?”

“Would you?”

Bonnie nodded, knowing he’d feel the motion against his chest. “If you want me to.” 

“I want my wife back,” John said, his voice rough. “I want Rose to have her mum back. 

“I know,” Bonnie said sadly, her hand stroking his chest. She couldn’t say no if John wanted her to see a psychiatrist. It would make him suspicious. But the very idea of lying to yet another person – and this one specifically trained in psychological and psychiatric diagnosis - made her want to curl up in exhaustion.

“You were good with Rose earlier,” John said. 

“Except that whole forgetting Nigel’s name thing.”

“She’s two. She forgets Nigel’s name sometimes. Last week she re-named him Roseberry Sparklefeet.”

Bonnie laughed. They were quiet for a while then. “Are you going to tell me a story then?” 

“You’re as bad as Rose,” he complained. “It’s a fairly brief story. A few weeks after we met, you came to my office, took off your clothes, and we had sex on my desk.”

That was hardly a satisfying story. She didn’t particularly like John’s tone either. It was detached, clinical. The opposite of the man who cornered her outside Rose’s bedroom and kissed her. 

“Forgive me, but you don’t really seem like the sex-on-a-desk type,” she said, making an effort to sound thoughtful rather than critical. She knew from their recent encounters that John was actually rather spectacular on the sex front. He just didn’t look like a sex God. 

“You were quite surprised at the time, too. I think you thought you were going to run the show. It’s never worked that way between us. I’m in charge, and well you know it.”

Bonnie felt herself getting a bit wet at his tone, his words, and the implications of that. While she remembered herself before John as having a lot of sex, it was just sex. Two bodies feeling good together, hell, sometimes more than two. Before the job with John she’d never fucked anyone older than her by a few years or so. Not intentionally, but she wasn’t likely to meet men John’s age at the clubs and pubs she hung out in with her mates. 

That said, she knew she would have put zero resistance up to the idea of seducing John when Missy told her to. The whole twenty years older, stern university professor who would put her over his knee and put her in her place was a fantasy that loomed large. That day in his office she would definitely have expected to seduce John, to encourage him to fuck her for as long as an older man could get it up for, pretend to have a wonderful orgasm and then subtly convince him that she thought he was an amazing lover so she could pave the way for this relationship. It seems things hadn’t gone according to that particular plan. 

“More details please,” she said. 

“I want to know what you remember.”

Bonnie screwed her eyes shut. There were so many black holes in her memory. “I know I was excited about the idea of fucking a university professor. Older man and all.” A memory came to her suddenly, like a photograph. “Oh! I had my short red skirt on.” 

“Skirt?” John scoffed. “That’s being generous. I thought it was more of a belt.” 

Bonnie opened her mouth to say something rude, but honestly, he was right. She thought some more. “I didn’t think the sex would be that great.” 

“How very fucking flattering,” John said flatly. 

She wanted to kick herself. “I’m sorry…I just meant, I didn’t know it was going to be really great sex. I was expecting something more--” 

“Elderly?” Sarcasm dripped from his words.

“No! Just…well, how would I have known you were going to put me over your knee and spank me. I didn’t know you were into stuff like that. You don’t look like you are.”

“What does someone into kink look like? Whips on the wall, floggers in the drawer and with a pair of arse-less chaps on?”

Bonnie burst into giggles at the idea of arse-less chaps. “Do you have any of those?” she asked when she could breathe again. 

“No,” he said, but she could hear the amusement in his voice. 

“Maybe you should get some.”

“That’s not how this works.”

Bonnie turned her head so she could see him. “How does this work?”

She watched as he reached a hand out to smooth her hair away from her face. “You tell the truth.” His hand moved to her cheek and he left it there. “Do you remember why you were in the hotel room without your wedding rings the day you lost your memory?”

Bonnie should have been ready for this question, but she wasn’t. She was tired and half delirious with giggles and she didn’t have the right answers for John’s probing questions. 

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. If I knew I’d tell you.” 

John kept looking at her, searching her eyes. Ah John, she thought, you’ll find very little but lies there. He dropped his hand from her cheek. 

“You were hardly a novice at kink,” he said, picking up the thread of their conversation like he hadn’t just asked the biggest question since she woke up in the hospital as someone who wasn’t his wife. “You didn’t even seem shocked that day when I suggested spanking you.” 

“Saying no to the professor putting me over his knee to spank me in his posh office? No way.”

“You liked it.”

“I loved it,” Bonnie said, because she knew she had. “Do you spank me – Clara – now then?”

“Hmmm,” John said. “Fairly regularly. Clara gets a bit difficult to manage if I don’t keep her in her place.”

Another flash of memory. “Sitting by your feet with my head on your lap while you stroke my hair.”

“You remember?” 

“Just flashes here and there.”

John shifted so he was partly on top of her, with one hand sifting through her hair, and the other low on her waist. She could feel his cock against her thigh and it felt like their little trip down missing-memory lane was having a positive effect. 

“What else do you remember?”

“In your office, our first time…you spanked me and my knickers were soaked. You touched me, you--"

“I fucked you with my fingers.” He had long fingers, Bonnie definitely remembered that. She felt his fingers twitch against her waist now.

“Say it,” he demanded. 

“You fucked me with your fingers,” she recited obediently.

“Do you remember how it felt?”

Bonnie shifted underneath him. “Yes. Can you, will you, please--”

John twisted his hand so he had a good chunk of her hair and pulled. Bonnie gasped, the sound coming out of her mouth pure arousal. It hurt where he was pulling her hair but it was the sort of hurt that felt good, so good. 

“What? What do you want?” John’s voice was deeper than usual and she felt him start to rub his cock against her leg. 

Bonnie’s face burned. This wasn’t her. She wasn’t like this with the men she fucked. She ran the show, she climbed on top of them and the show ended when she came. This…this was something different and she felt unsure and vulnerable and unable to say what she wanted. 

“Use your words like a good girl,” John said. “And you might just get it.” 

“Please fuck me with your fingers.” It all came out in a rush, but Bonnie was relieved she got it out at all. 

“That’s my girl,” John said. He pulled up her nightie. She wasn’t wearing underwear and he purred his approval as his fingers dipped between her legs. He groaned as he touched her, his fingers easily slipping inside her. Bonnie bit her lip to stop from moaning as John worked his fingers. She spread her legs as far as she could and she heard him give a little chuckle. 

Bonnie quickly discovered John knew exactly what he was doing to her and how to make her body sing. She was lost in a haze of carnal delight as he finger fucked her. 

“Getting close?” he breathed into her neck. “That was quick.” 

“It’s been a while.” 

“For me too.”

“It’s okay to think of me as Clara, you know,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

Maybe that was the wrong to say because he stopped moving his fingers. “I mind.” 

Bonnie slid her hand down to his cock, hard and wanting. She gently rubbed her hand against him. “Don’t deny yourself this, John. I am Clara. I am your wife. And I need you to help me find my way home.” 

John tore the covers off, pulled his pyjama pants off and helped her pull her nightie over her head. She went to move, to reach for him, and he said, “No. Don’t move. Just lay there with your legs spread exactly like that.”

So she did, and very quickly discovered that while John might be a good deal older than her, he’d evidently put those years to damn good use learning exactly how to make a woman’s body feel very, very good. It wasn’t that he had good fucking skills and good oral sex skills. A lot of men thought they were heroes for going down on women, but most of them didn’t really know what they were doing or simply did it to get it. All fine, well and good, but Bonnie could honestly say none of her previous lovers brought John’s…thoroughness to the task of turning her on and making her come. John clearly knew that sex was more than just penis in the vagina and he relished turning it into an art form. There was no part of her that he wouldn’t touch, no part of her that he wouldn’t lick and pleasure. He hurt her too, sucking a little too hard on her nipples, the occasional slap of his open hand on her bare arse, and even in between her legs. He used her hair to pull her harshly into the position where he could best suck on her neck, biting hard but carefully into the muscle in a way that made Bonnie gasp. After a few orgasms she was reduced to a soaking wet, quivering mess. He placed her hand on his cock then, and told her to stroke him. She did and he came all over her stomach. 

She lay in the bed trying to get her breath back, as went to get two warm flannels. With one he carefully wiped his cum from her body and the other he used to wash her face gently, pushing her hair back where it had stuck to her face with sweat. He wiped between her legs too. Bonnie was so tired, so satisfyingly exhausted, all she could do was lay there like a doll. She dozed then, only waking up a little when John tugged her nightie over her head. 

“Okay?” he asked. 

“Yes.” 

“Do you need anything?”

This question stirred memories within her. He asked Clara this question after this kind of intense sexual experience. Aftercare, that’s what it was called. 

“Cuddles,” she said. Because that’s what Clara said. And also because she really wanted John to hold her.

He nodded. Something seemed wrong, but Bonnie was too tired to care right now. If John wanted to act all weird in the morning when they woke up, fine. For now he just needed to hold her. She stayed awake just long enough to feel his arms around her and to realise the whole time John was making her come, he never kissed her mouth.


	12. Chapter 12

“Mummy!”

Bonnie rolled over, trying to get away from the voice.

“Mum!”

Something soft and light hit Bonnie’s shoulder as the kid shouted for her Mum again. 

“Mummy! Nigel is hungry! He’s a bear and bears eat bear food which looks a lot like Marmite. If you go down the woods today, you’re in to see some guys, big ones furry ones--”

Bonnie realised she was this kid’s Mum and sat up so suddenly Rose stopped her impromptu and incorrect rendition of The Teddy’s Bear Picnic. 

“Hi Mum!” Rose launched herself at Bonnie and she caught the small warm body of her daughter who quickly pulled away to give her a big grin. Looking at Rose was like looking into a tiny mirror, apart from John’s eyes of course. Rose reached for Nigel and promptly clocked Bonnie on the head with him. 

Bonnie smiled. “Where’s your Dad?” 

“Here,” John said from the doorway. He was dressed and looked like he’d been up for hours. Maybe he had been. “What did I say, Rose?”

Rose buried her head in Bonnie’s shoulder.

“Rose.” There was a note of warning, and the little girl turned her head towards him. 

“You said not to wake up Mummy.”

“I did.” 

“Sorry Mummy,” Rose said, throwing her small arms around Bonnie’s neck. 

Bonnie was overwhelmed. The sex last night, being awoken so suddenly, and Rose…most of all she was overwhelmed by this tiny human she and John created. 

“Mummy help me get dressed?” Rose said, pulling back to essentially bat her eyelashes at her mother. 

“Okay,” Bonnie said impulsively. 

“Yaaaaay!” Rose grabbed Nigel and rushed off into her room, talking nonsense to the bear.

John was still standing in the doorway. “How are you this morning?”

“Fine, thank you.” Bonnie pushed the covers back and stood up, feeling twinges in places that hadn’t twinged for a while, or at least for as long as she could remember. “How are you?”

John gave her a penetrating look. “Fine. Good.” The warm lover of last night was gone, replaced by the stand-offish almost-stranger Bonnie was used to. He turned, hesitated, and turned back. “Do you remember how to dress Rose?”

Bonnie picked up Clara’s dressing gown and shrugged. How hard could it be? She thought John smirked, but she couldn’t be sure. 

Fifteen minutes later Bonnie was regretting her impulsive agreement to dress her child and she was absolutely certain John had smirked at her. To begin with, Rose insisted on pulling all of the clothes out of the drawers. Then she had to try on four outfits before deciding. Some of her choices were absolutely not suited to what Bonnie assumed would be a day at home. She needed to finish reading her reports so she was ready for Missy at 0800 tomorrow and she was growing impatient with the process of dressing Rose. 

“Rose, I don’t think a party dress is--”

“I want to wear it!”

“But it’s much too cold for that dress. And what if you get it dirty?”

“I want to wear it!” Rose repeated, her voice rising. 

Bonnie stared down the stubborn almost-three-year-old. “No.”

“I. Want. To. WEAR IT!” Rose screamed. 

“Rose Elena Smith,” John’s voice cracked like a whip from the door, “stop that right now.” 

It had an immediate effect on Rose who dropped her eyes and stared hard at her bare feet peeping out from under the dress. 

“Elena?” Bonnie said, poleaxed. “That’s my Mum’s name.” Suddenly it was all too much and she almost ran out of the room, trying and failing to keep her sobs silent. She ran into John and Clara’s bedroom and threw herself on the bed and cried. She cried because she was confused, she cried because she wasn’t Clara-enough for John, because she didn’t even know her own child, because her lies were so many and so intricate that she didn’t know the truth anymore. She cried because her Mum was gone. She cried because she couldn’t remember the last five years. She cried because despite John and Rose, she was alone. She had been alone since she was 12, when she stood next to her Mum’s grave and vowed she’d never let anything hurt her as much as losing her Mum had hurt her. 

She’d managed to cry herself out by the time she heard the bedroom door open. She turned her head into the pillow, not wanting to see John, to hear him say something mean or worse, something kind. Instead she felt a tiny hand on her back, patting her gently. She turned. 

“Sorry Mummy,” Rose said. She was gripping John’s hand tightly and she looked very sad. She was wearing a much more sensible outfit of pink tights and a cuddly jumper with a polar bear on it. 

“Good girl,” John said. “What did I tell you about Mummy this morning at breakfast?”

“Mummy had an accident and forgot some things and we have to help her remember. I need to be a good girl.”

“That’s right.”

Rose gave John a watery smile and let go of his hand. She got up onto the bed and slid herself in next to Bonnie. “I’m here for cuddles,” she announced.

Bonnie smiled and opened her arms for the little girl to fit perfectly into them. John left them to their cuddling. Rose chatted away to Bonnie about the important things in her life which could be summarised as her dad, Nigel and her other toys, Aunty Donna, books and the television show Shaun the Sheep. 

“Shall we get up Mummy?” Rose asked after a while. 

Bonnie was agreeable and quickly dressed in jeans and a jumper. Just as she was brushing her hair, she felt a pain in her head and a flash came to her. She was in a hotel room, looking at a tall man with sandy blonde hair and a bow tie. She was furious with him and he was nervous. 

“Mummy?” Rose’s little voice sounded a bit worried.

Bonnie put down her hairbrush. The flash was gone. “I’m okay. Shall we find your Dad?”

Rose nodded and rushed off. Bonnie leaned against the vanity for a moment, rubbing her head. She’d never seen that guy in her life. He didn’t look like anyone she worked with. Or at least anyone she knew. But who the hell knew? A five year gaping hole in her memory left a lot of space for people she’d met. 

Downstairs John was getting Rose ready to leave for story time at the library. He invited Bonnie along and when she mentioned she needed to catch up on some work stuff before tomorrow, he told her she could use Clara’s laptop upstairs. 

“I don’t know the password,” she admitted. 

“Ah. Well, there’s always Rose’s iPad. The password is Nigel123.”

“Nigel is a big presence in this house,” Bonnie said, smiling.

John laughed. “You have no idea.” 

“No,” Bonnie said quietly. “I don’t.”

“I didn’t mean--"

“Daddy! Let’s go!” Rose called from the front door. 

Bonnie shook her head. “It’s fine. Go, have fun.”

When they left, she found the iPad and the cable that would allow her to plug her USB into it. She picked up her reading where she’d left off yesterday. The report for Rose’s birth gave her heart a little lurch in her chest. “Rose Elena Oswald Smith was born two days ago. 7 pounds 3 ounces, 36cm long. Healthy. John is besotted with her.” Several reports followed. It seemed she’d had a difficult birth and it had taken a frustratingly long time to recover her previous level of physical fitness. Her maternity leave seemed to involve a lot of copies of John’s research notes. It seemed he was preoccupied with the baby enough to be a little careless with his research material. Bonnie still couldn’t make head or toe of what it was John was constructing. 

Bonnie of the past had printed a series of emails between John and a man, entirely in French. Bonnie discovered she read French quite well, only snagging on the occasional unfamiliar word. When she looked the words up in a handy French to English dictionary, it was because they were engineering terms she’d never had any reason to hear before. While the Frenchman – Raphael Boudlier – had some technical information to offer, Bonnie was none the wiser about what John was actually building. She decided to ask Missy tomorrow. Scanning through the rest of the notes, Bonnie stopped when she read an entry from two months ago where she’d reported that John might be cheating on her. 

The note read “John has been acting a bit oddly. He’s secretive in a way he isn’t usually, and he seems remote and hard to engage. Sex has dropped off. An affair?” There were only two reports after that and neither mentioned an affair. 

Bonnie mechanically performed the wipe of Rose’s iPad to remove evidence of her reading material. John didn’t seem like the cheating sort. Yes, if women knew about his skills in the bedroom they’d probably form a damn line. But why would he risk losing Rose, losing her? Unless he thought he could have it both ways. Maybe he figured because he was Rose’s primary carer he’d just take her with him if he left. Bonnie returned Rose’s iPad to John’s study and was walking back downstairs when a searing pain shot through her head. 

In the memory she and John were in the living room and she was crying. 

“Clara--” John said, his hand reaching out. 

“No! You don’t get to cheat on me and act like it's fine. You don’t get to run out of here and leave me alone with our sick daughter so you can see a lover!” Bonnie could feel her distress in the memory. She was not entirely acting. Part of her was stunned John would cheat on her. Stunned and hurt. 

John looked strangely blank. “So that wasn’t you going into the Clarendon Hotel in the early afternoon last week?” 

Shit. “No! I mean yes, but it was for work.”

“You work in a school, Clara,” John said, his eyes boring into hers. “Are you taking students on field trips to hotels now?”

“Course not. We’re working on a project with a government department and we were attending a meeting there.” The lie was smooth, practiced, rehearsed. “Were you following me?”

“It was entirely coincidental that I saw you. It was entirely intentional when I followed you into the hotel to watch my wife meet a tall man wearing a bow tie of all things in the lobby, and go upstairs, presumably to a room, with him.”

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. 

“I’ve learned two things today, Clara. One, that you’re almost certainly cheating on me. Two, that you’re a very very good liar. That makes me wonder what else you’re lying about.” 

“So you’ve decided I’m cheating on you, so you go and cheat on me.”

“Sure,” John said carelessly. “Why not? You don’t seem to want me in that way anymore. It’s been months since we had sex.”

“You can’t blame that all on me.”

“I don’t.” He stepped toward her. “This isn’t about blame. I know men want you, Clara. You’re gorgeous. But I also know that no matter how many men you cheat on me with they don’t know you like I do and they can’t make you feel how I make you feel. Can they?” 

Bonnie craned her head to hold eye contact with John as he moved into her personal space. 

“Can they?” he repeated. 

The noise of the front door opening jolted her out of the memory. She sank down on the stairs, holding her hand up to her forehead, pushing against her skull like that could ease the pain. 

“Hi Mummy!” Rose’s cheery little voice was like a lance in Bonnie’s brain. She tried to smile at her daughter, but Rose knew something was wrong. “Daddy!” Rose’s tone was urgent and John appeared very quickly. 

He kneeled next to Rose and gently touched his hand to Bonnie’s back. “What’s wrong, love?”

Bonnie realised for the first time that she was crying. “My head,” she whispered. “It hurts.”

“Move out the way Rose, let me help Mummy up.” John picked Bonnie up and carried her carefully up the stairs and into his bedroom. He laid her on the bed and Bonnie closed her eyes, the throbbing in her head eclipsing everything else.

“Mummy’s head hurts and I’m going to get her some medicine,” she heard John tell Rose. “Can you stay here and hold Mummy’s hand and be very quiet?”

“Yes,” Rose said softly. 

Bonnie heard John leave the room and felt Rose’s little hand slip into hers. She squeezed it. 

John came back and gave Bonnie two tablets and helped her sip water to get them down. He pulled the curtains so the room was dark. Bonnie felt his lips ghost across her forehead. 

“We’ll be downstairs,” he told her softly. “I’ll come and check on you in a while.” 

Bonnie woke up to find John sitting next to her on the bed. His hand was gentle on her forehead. “I called the doctor. He phoned a prescription through to the pharmacy for painkillers. I’ll go and pick it up in a while. Are you still in pain?”

Bonnie nodded, wincing when the motion hurt her head. “It’s better, but still there.”

“Hmm,” John said, gently stroking his thumb over forehead. 

She closed her eyes. “Where’s Rose?” she asked.

“Watching Shaun the Sheep.” 

Bonnie smiled a little. 

“Do you need anything?” 

Bonnie hesitated before whispering, “A cuddle?”

John didn’t hesitate, laying down next to her and pulling her into his arms. Bonnie didn’t want to think about her memories, her lies, her job, the pain in her head and in her heart. She just wanted John to hold her, so she could pretend she was safe. The funny thing was, John did make her feel safe. For once she wasn’t lying or pretending. She was just safe.


	13. Chapter 13

When John woke up in the morning it was early. Too early by the look of the dim grey light in the room. He checked his phone to discover it was 4:25am. He turned to watch Bonnie as she slept. Clara and Bonnie obviously shared the same body, but when they were awake Clara was more relaxed than Bonnie: quicker to smile, to laugh, she was more affectionate, lighter on her feet and maybe just lighter in general. When she was awake Bonnie rarely smiled. She seemed weighed down, tense, defensive, closed off. But asleep, that tension ebbed away, and she seemed relaxed and peaceful and more like Clara. John gently swept her dark hair away from her face, this woman who was his wife but not his wife. 

He considered going back to sleep, but now was a good time to get some work in, especially since Bonnie was going back to work today and he’d need to spend the majority of the day looking after Rose. 

He dressed quickly and went downstairs to put the kettle on. Ten minutes later he was in his office with his cup of tea, staring at the plans for the TARDIS. John tried not to overthink the current technical issues because if he did, he would never solve them. He’d just get frustrated and angry and that would move him further away from finding a solution. It was like astronomy in some ways - the best way to view some star formations was to not look exactly at them, but slightly to one side. He had to approach the TARDIS issue carefully, slowly, gently, teasing the edges of it. It was an exercise in patience and John was feeling a bit short on patience these days. 

He smoothed the edges of the plans. TARDIS was written in the bottom left hand corner of the schematic. Under it was written its full name: Technical Ancillary Response Distraction In Situ. The TARDIS was designed to be deployed in situations of terrorism, with the goal being to distract terrorists by disabling their weapons, thus saving the lives of hostages and bystanders. That’s if he could ever get it to work. It was a complicated combination of humanity and technology and it required a very precise set of conditions to work. Too bloody precise. They’d built a prototype and while some field tests had yielded positive results, the consistency they needed to move forward just wasn’t there. Maybe it never would be. No, he couldn’t think like that. Focus. He got back to work. 

“Morning.”

John turned to see Bonnie standing outside his office nursing a cup of tea between her hands. 

“Morning. What time is it?” 

“Almost six.”

John blinked. Work was often like this for him. He’d immerse himself in it and time would seem to bend. 

“How did you sleep?” he asked, noticing Bonnie looked troubled and the tension that had disappeared when she was asleep was back.

“Not that well. Can we talk for a moment?” she asked. 

John casually rolled up the TARDIS plans. “Of course.” He joined Bonnie on the old couch he sometimes took an afternoon nap on if Rose let him. The street was visible from the couch and it was a misty grey John fondly associated with London. People were bustling by, off to work he supposed. 

“My headaches…they happen suddenly after I’ve remembered something,” Bonnie said.

John stared at her. “What have you remembered?”

“We had a fight…I said you were cheating on me. That you’d left me alone with Rose to go and meet another woman.”

John wondered why of all of the things Bonnie could have remembered, that particular argument was what resurfaced first. Not the birth of their daughter, not the happy years before that, not the great sex, not their wedding day, not a thousand meals they’d shared, not Rose’s first birthday.

“John?” Bonnie’s voice interrupted his thoughts. 

“Yes?”

“Did you cheat on Clara?”

“No.” 

Bonnie frowned. “Then why did she think you did?”

The strangeness of Bonnie asking him to interpret the actions of her alter-ego didn’t escape John. “I’m not sure. I visited an old friend. Well, she’s young actually, a previous student of mine, and Clara didn’t like it.”

“What’s her name?”

“Amy. Amy Pond. Red hair, quite tall. Nice girl.” He glanced at Bonnie. “Woman. She’s in her twenties. Married to a fellow called Rory.”

“You never dated her?”

“Dated? No.”

“Fucked?”

John gave Bonnie a long look. “Yes. But it was before Clara and I were a couple.” Not that long before, but he and Amy had been very casual. She wasn’t into the same kink John was, so while the sex was good, it wasn’t as satisfying as being with a woman who was wired to be submissive. After he realized Clara was that woman, he and Amy had happily parted ways. She’d reconnected with her childhood friend Rory soon after and they’d gone on to marry and have a little girl, Melody. Melody was only a little younger than Rose and they sometimes got the two girls together to play. Even prior to their argument and Clara’s accusations about him having an affair with Amy, Clara had never liked Amy. John had never really understood why. 

“I don’t understand why Clara would think you were cheating if you weren’t. I - we - aren’t prone to being hysterical for no reason.” She gave John a quick look. “Are we?” 

“No. Things were a bit strained between us then. Maybe she was looking for something to blame?” 

Bonnie sipped her tea. 

“Do you remember the rest of the conversation?” he asked. 

She paused, and John wondered how much she remembered. She nodded, a bit reluctantly. “The man with the bow tie at the Clarendon Hotel.”

He turned to face her. “Did you have sex with him? Is that what you were there for?”

Bonnie looked at him with big brown eyes. He swore they could inflate and one day he’d fall into them and drown. Not a bad way to go, he supposed. 

“I honestly don’t remember,” she said softly.

John had leaned forward and now he eased himself back on the couch, disappointed. 

“Why would I cheat? You and Clara might have had 99 problems as a couple, but sex doesn’t seem to be one of them.”

John blinked at her, the pop culture reference going right over his head. “Maybe it was, at least for Clara. We were in a bit of a rut, I suppose. Rose needs so much, Clara was busy with work, we’d sort of fallen out of the dynamic we enjoyed. As much as I hate to admit it, it wouldn’t be that surprising if Clara decided to go elsewhere for sex. She is - you are - young and beautiful. There are a lot of men who’d go a long way to enjoy sex with you.”

“Is that Clara though? It doesn’t seem like something she would do.”

John shrugged and gave a short laugh that sounded bitter to his ears. “Who can say? I’m not sure I knew Clara as well as I thought.”

They sat silently for a time after that, sipping their tea and watching London - or at least Notting Hill - go about its business.

“I don’t remember anything else,” Bonnie said, standing up. “I don’t remember what happened the day I lost my memory, or what I was doing in that hotel room without my rings on.”

“Probably the same thing you were doing with bow tie,” John said, his voice sounding bitter to his own ears. 

“Probably,” Bonnie said, her own voice flat. “Did you want to break up with Clara?” 

“No, certainly not.” He ran his hand through his hair. “If Clara was having sex with someone else, I probably wouldn’t care that much. But an affair…I’d care about that and that was probably part of the fight you are remembering. I wanted to know why she was keeping it a secret from me, and why she felt she had to go elsewhere emotionally or elsewhere for a Dominant when I’m right here. Sex is cheap. Emotion isn’t. Our dynamic isn’t.”

Bonnie’s eyebrows were lifted. “It doesn’t seem Clara shared your opinion on it being okay to go elsewhere for sex.”

John gave a short laugh. “I’m well aware of that. Clara was clear from the beginning that while she appreciated I didn’t need monogamy for sex, she did. I didn’t mind. I’m clearly older than her and my sexual needs are not as pressing as they once were. Clara was enough for me.” He glanced at Bonnie, leaving unsaid what was obvious - that he didn’t seem to be enough for Clara. 

“Did you get over the fight?”

“Yes, I suppose. Long term relationships rely upon the ability to get over things, both big and small. But that was an issue that had been bubbling away for a while. If this hadn’t happened,” he waved his hand vaguely in Bonnie’s direction, “ it would have continued to be an issue and eventually I would have insisted on knowing who bow tie man was.”

“And now?”

“Now…well, you can’t tell me things you don’t know I suppose. Clara was honest to the point of bluntness and I feel I know my wife well enough to know she would eventually have told me what she was doing at the Clarendon Hotel.” 

Bonnie drank her tea and didn’t say anything. 

“Do you feel ready for work?” he asked. 

“No.” 

“Once they understand the amnesia, I’m sure they’ll be patient with you.” John had agreed with Bonnie that she needed to tell the school about her amnesia, but they both thought she should leave out the part about suddenly being a different person with a different name. 

“I hope so,” she said quietly. “I best go get dressed.” 

She left and in the wake of their conversation all thoughts of the problems with the TARDIS flew from John’s mind. He sat down at his desk again to work on a journal article he was writing that was hideously overdue. It was shaping up okay, but he lacked the interest and enthusiasm to be bothered with academic publishing these days. He’d thought he’d return to some casual teaching when the TARDIS was either complete or completely bloody abandoned, but maybe not. 

He was surprised out of his writing when Bonnie and Rose appeared in his study. Rose was dressed.

“Morning Daddy!” Rose said, running over so he could lift her up on his lap. “Mummy helped me get dressed.” 

He could see the pride on Bonnie’s face at accomplishing what she couldn’t yesterday. “Good job Mummy,” he said. “And good job Rose.”

“I’m going to leave for work now,” Bonnie said. 

John noticed for the first time she was wearing one of Clara’s work outfits - the short dress was made of a green and blue tartan and like most of Clara’s skirts and dresses, it only reached mid-thigh. She was wearing black tights and her shoes were a rusty red colour. Around her neck she wore one of Clara’s necklaces. He’d given it to her, long ago on a boardwalk in Blackpool on a cold starlit night.

“You look lovely,” he said, meaning it.

Bonnie’s face registered surprise and then she blushed prettily. “Thank you. I’m hoping I won’t be too late home.” 

John smiled at her. “Have a good day.” 

She nodded and was turning to leave when Rose shouted, “Mummy! Kiss!”

Bonnie took the omission in stride and pulled a funny face at Rose. “Silly me. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached.” 

This made Rose giggle and Bonnie dropped a kiss on Rose’s shiny dark hair. 

“Nigel!” Rose demanded, hauling the furry bear very close to John’s face, just about hitting him. He was unfazed. Nigel hit him in the face at least three or four times a day. 

Bonnie kissed the toy. 

“Kiss Daddy!” 

Bonnie leaned forward to kiss his cheek and at the last moment he turned his head, so her mouth landed on his. While initially startled, Bonnie didn’t pull away from the soft kiss. On his lap, Rose giggled. 

When Bonnie was gone, he and Rose settled into their day. In the early afternoon he got a phone call from the Harley Street psychiatrist the hospital doctor had recommended to him. They had a last-minute cancellation and wanted to know if they could attend an appointment this evening at 7. He sent Bonnie a text and she agreed. He called Ash and asked if she would sit with Rose for the couple of hours it would take for the appointment, and she said she would. John wanted to be hopeful, but he doubted their situation had any quick fixes. He had a bad feeling they were in for a long, painful process of Bonnie remembering what is was to be Clara. But would she ever be Clara again? Or would she still be Bonnie, but with Clara’s memories? He wondered what defined a person really. Their memories or who they identified as? Bonnie was Clara in many ways. He just didn’t know if it was enough.


End file.
